父亲和孩子她听见我敲打木板，说她是一切好男人和好女人的禁忌，因为她和一个名声最坏的男人在一起;于是他回答说，他的头发很美，他的眼睛像三月的风一样冷。如果我把睫毛画得更黑，眼睛画得更亮，嘴唇画得更红，或者从一面又一面镜子里问是否一切都好，没有虚荣心的展示:我在寻找我在世界创造之前的脸。如果我看着一个男人，就像看着我的爱人，我的血会暂时冰凉，我的心也不会动摇?为什么他会认为我残忍或者他被出卖了?我想让他爱上世界形成前的一切。我承认缠在我头发上的荆棘没有伤害我;我的畏缩和颤抖，除了掩饰，除了撒娇。我渴望真理，但我又不能远离那善良的自我，因为一个男人的关注能使我骨子里的渴望得到满足。我从黄道十二宫拉回的光明，为什么那双质疑的眼睛盯着我? What can they do but shun me If empty night replies? IV HER TRIUMPH I DID the dragon's will until you came Because I had fancied love a casual Improvisation, or a settled game That followed if I let the kerchief fall: Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings And heavenly music if they gave it wit; And then you stood among the dragon-rings. I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it And broke the chain and set my ankles free, Saint George or else a pagan Perseus; And now we stare astonished at the sea, And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us. V CONSOLATION O BUT there is wisdom In what the sages said; But stretch that body for a while And lay down that head Till I have told the sages Where man is comforted. How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot? But where the crime's committed The crime can be forgot. VI CHOSEN THE lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much Struggling for an image on the track Of the whirling Zodiac. Scarce did he my body touch, Scarce sank he from the west Or found a subtetranean rest On the maternal midnight of my breast Before I had marked him on his northern way, And seemed to stand although in bed I lay. I struggled with the horror of daybreak, I chose it for my lot! If questioned on My utmost pleasure with a man By some new-married bride, I take That stillness for a theme Where his heart my heart did seem And both adrift on the miraculous stream Where -- wrote a learned astrologer -- The Zodiac is changed into a sphere. VII PARTING i{He.} Dear, I must be gone While night Shuts the eyes Of the household spies; That song announces dawn. i{She.} No, night's bird and love's Bids all true lovers rest, While his loud song reproves The murderous stealth of day. i{He.} Daylight already flies From mountain crest to crest i{She.} That light is from the moom. i{He.} That bird... i{She.} Let him sing on, I offer to love's play My dark declivities. VIII HER VISION IN THE WOOD DRY timber under that rich foliage, At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood, Too old for a man's love I stood in rage Imagining men. Imagining that I could A greater with a lesser pang assuage Or but to find if withered vein ran blood, I tore my body that its wine might cover Whatever could rccall the lip of lover. And after that I held my fingers up, Stared at the wine-dark nail, or dark that ran Down every withered finger from the top; But the dark changed to red, and torches shone, And deafening music shook the leaves; a troop Shouldered a litter with a wounded man, Or smote upon the string and to the sound Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound. All stately women moving to a song With loosened hair or foreheads grief-distraught, It seemed a Quattrocento painter's throng, A thoughtless image of Mantegna's thought -- Why should they think that are for ever young? Till suddenly in grief's contagion caught, I stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast And sang my malediction with the rest. That thing all blood and mire, that beast-torn wreck, Half turned and fixed a glazing eye on mine, And, though love's bitter-sweet had all come back, Those bodies from a picture or a coin Nor saw my body fall nor heard it shriek, Nor knew, drunken with singing as with wine, That they had brought no fabulous symbol there But my heart's victim and its torturer. IX A LAST CONFESSION