Look! We Have Come Through! Part 15

We shall _be_, _now_.

We shall know in full.

We, the mystic NOW.

ZENNOR

_AUTUMN RAIN_

THE plane leaves fall black and wet on the lawn;

The cloud sheaves in heaven's fields set droop and are drawn

in falling seeds of rain; the seed of heaven on my face

falling--I hear again like echoes even that softly pace

Heaven's m.u.f.fled floor, the winds that tread out all the grain

of tears, the store harvested in the sheaves of pain

caught up aloft: the sheaves of dead men that are slain

now winnowed soft on the floor of heaven; manna invisible

of all the pain here to us given; finely divisible falling as rain.

_FROST FLOWERS_

IT is not long since, here among all these folk in London, I should have held myself of no account whatever, but should have stood aside and made them way thinking that they, perhaps, had more right than I--for who was I?

Now I see them just the same, and watch them.

But of what account do I hold them?

Especially the young women. I look at them as they dart and flash before the shops, like wagtails on the edge of a pool.

If I pa.s.s them close, or any man, like sharp, slim wagtails they flash a little aside pretending to avoid us; yet all the time calculating.

They think that we adore them--alas, would it were true!

Probably they think all men adore them, howsoever they pa.s.s by.

What is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring, such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces, like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman hyacinths, scyllas and yellow-haired h.e.l.lebore, jonquils, dim anemones, even the sulphur auriculas, flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel cold to the touch, flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost; what is it, that, from the faces of the fair young women comes like a pungent scent, a vibration beneath that startles me, alarms me, stirs up a repulsion?

They are the issue of acrid winter, these first- flower young women; their scent is lacerating and repellant, it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache, of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption; it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption, when destruction soaks through the mortified, decomposing earth, and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom of the ground.

They are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification, thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms, with a loveliness I loathe; for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart must they need to root in!

_CRAVING FOR SPRING_

I WISH it were spring in the world.

Let it be spring!

Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!

Come, rush of creation!

Come, life! surge through this ma.s.s of mortifica- tion!

Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first- flowers, which are rather last-flowers!

Come, thaw down their cool portentousness, dissolve them: snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of white and purple crocuses, flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption, nourished in mortification, jets of exquisite finality; Come, spring, make havoc of them!

I trample on the snowdrops, it gives me pleasure to tread down the jonquils, to destroy the chill Lent lilies; for I am sick of them, their faint-bloodedness, slow-blooded, icy-fleshed, portentous.

I want the fine, kindling wine-sap of spring, gold, and of inconceivably fine, quintessential brightness, rare almost as beams, yet overwhelmingly potent, strong like the greatest force of world-balancing.

This is the same that picks up the harvest of wheat and rocks it, tons of grain, on the ripening wind; the same that dangles the globe-shaped pleiads of fruit temptingly in mid-air, between a playful thumb and finger; oh, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, whirls the pear-bloom, upon us, and apple- and almond- and apricot- and quince-blossom, storms and c.u.mulus clouds of all imaginable blossom about our bewildered faces, though we do not wors.h.i.+p.

I wish it were spring cunningly blowing on the fallen sparks, odds and ends of the old, scattered fire, and kindling shapely little conflagrations curious long-legged foals, and wide-eared calves, and naked sparrow-bubs.

I wish that spring would start the thundering traffic of feet new feet on the earth, beating with impatience.

I wish it were spring, thundering delicate, tender spring.

I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of pas- sionate, mysterious corruption were not yet to come still more from the still- flickering discontent.

Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for very exuberance, exulting with secret warm excess, bowed down with his inner magnificence!

Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet dancing sportfully; as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint of water for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a fair.

The gush of spring is strong enough to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a fountain; At the same time it opens the tiny hands of the hazel with such infinite patience.

The power of the rising, golden, all-creative sap could take the earth and heave it off among the stars, into the in- visible; the same sets the throstle at sunset on a bough singing against the blackbird; comes out in the hesitating tremor of the primrose, and betrays its candour in the round white straw- berry flower, is dignified in the foxglove, like a Red-Indian brave.

Ah come, come quickly, spring!

Come and lift us towards our culmination, we myriads; we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses.

Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us to our summer we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world.

Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy, come and soften the willow buds till they are puffed and furred, then blow them over with gold.

Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers.

Come quickly, and vindicate us against too much death.

Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the world from within, burst it with germination, with world anew.

Come now, to us, your adherents, who cannot flower from the ice.

All the world gleams with the lilies of Death the Unconquerable, but come, give us our turn.

Enough of the virgins and lilies, of pa.s.sionate, suffocating perfume of corruption, no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades of sensation piercing the flesh to blossom of death.

Have done, have done with this shuddering, delicious business of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent pa.s.sion, of rare, death-edged ecstasy.

Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour strike, O soon, soon!

Let the darkness turn violet with rich dawn.

Let the darkness be warmed, warmed through to a ruddy violet, incipient purpling towards summer in the world of the heart of man.

Are the violets already here!