A Jealous Lover

I

I have an idol wrought of stainless gold

Before whose feet I bow, in whose delight

I am content to live, whose spells of might

Are smiles that gleam, are tears that glisten cold

On the fair cheek that blushes if I praise;

Are warm ripe kisses in the softer hours

When love is perfect blossom of sweet flowers,

Are shadowed glances of pure love light rays

From clear blue eyes, are wonderful caresses

When love is golden autumn of sweet fruit.

What other worship can usurp my days

When I may lie amid her sunny tresses

Enraptured by the music of her lute

One long calm love, one heart’s delight always?

2

Bright spheres of heaven, firefly gleams, fair ghosts

Laugh lightly to the silver globe of night

That glitters on green fields, and on the sea

Ripples break foamless, where the golden coasts

Echo their mellow cadence. Such delight

Is on me I would fain sigh into sleep [35]

Until my love comes forth to dream with me

Of silent words of love and peopled stars

Where we may live and love and never weep

Nor yet be weary. The last ruby bars

Are sunk beneath the sea. The shadows creep

More on me as I quicken with desire

My love is all of gold, my faith is deep

Lit with my heart’s imperishable fire.

3

Pale specters of the stars, corpse-lights, bad-ghosts

Sicken the icy glamour of the moon

Upon the vacant earth; and where the sea

Marshals sepulchral billows, obscene hosts

Of harpies gibber weirdly. I should swoon

For the silence, rolled not some dread minstrelsy

In fearful anguish on the shuddering air,

Breathing out terror and lightning to the night

That widely echoes back Hell’s venomous spite,

And shrieks aloud the watchword of despair

To draw each pain racked nerve more tense and gray

For I am alone, unloved, in murk and gloom,

Unloved, unfriended, fittest for the tomb,

Who worshipped golden feet and found them clay.

[36]

4

She creeps alive upon the tawny sands,

False glittering woman, girt about with lies!

She steals toward me, the tigress sleek and fierce!

Destroying devil, with long sinuous hands

And hate triumphant in blue-murderous eyes!

I nerve myself to spring upon and pierce

With maddening fangs those firm white bosom towers,

To tear those lithe voluptuous limbs apart

And glut my ravening soul with vengeance. Heart

Quickens as she draws near; the scent of flowers

Breathes round her damned presence. Shall she live

To triumph with those tainted lips of song –

She whispered ‘Dearest, I have kept thee long’.

I flung myself before her, ‘Love, forgive!’ [37]

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