Look! We Have Come Through! Part 2

_FIRST MORNING_

THE night was a failure but why not--?

In the darkness with the pale dawn seething at the window through the black frame I could not be free, not free myself from the past, those others-- and our love was a confusion, there was a horror, you recoiled away from me.

Now, in the morning As we sit in the suns.h.i.+ne on the seat by the little shrine, And look at the mountain-walls, Walls of blue shadow, And see so near at our feet in the meadow Myriads of dandelion pappus Bubbles ravelled in the dark green gra.s.s Held still beneath the suns.h.i.+ne--

It is enough, you are near-- The mountains are balanced, The dandelion seeds stay half-submerged in the gra.s.s; You and I together We hold them proud and blithe On our love.

They stand upright on our love, Everything starts from us, We are the source.

BEUERBERG

_"AND OH-- THAT THE MAN I AM MIGHT CEASE TO BE--"_

No, now I wish the suns.h.i.+ne would stop, and the white s.h.i.+ning houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with m.u.f.fled sound obliterating everything.

I wish that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever.

Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

What is sleep?

It goes over me, like a shadow over a hill, but it does not alter me, nor help me.

And death would ache still, I am sure; it would be lambent, uneasy.

I wish it would be completely dark everywhere, inside me, and out, heavily dark utterly.

WOLFRATSHAUSEN

_SHE LOOKS BACK_

THE pale bubbles The lovely pale-gold bubbles of the globe-flowers In a great swarm clotted and single Went rolling in the dusk towards the river To where the sunset hung its wan gold cloths; And you stood alone, watching them go, And that mother-love like a demon drew you from me Towards England.

Along the road, after nightfall, Along the glamorous birch-tree avenue Across the river levels We went in silence, and you staring to England.

So then there shone within the jungle darkness Of the long, lush under-gra.s.s, a glow-worm's sudden Green lantern of pure light, a little, intense, fusing triumph, White and haloed with fire-mist, down in the tangled darkness.

Then you put your hand in mine again, kissed me, and we struggled to be together.

And the little electric flashes went with us, in the gra.s.s, Tiny lighthouses, little souls of lanterns, courage burst into an explosion of green light Everywhere down in the gra.s.s, where darkness was ravelled in darkness.

Still, the kiss was a touch of bitterness on my mouth Like salt, burning in.

And my hand withered in your hand.

For you were straining with a wild heart, back, back again, Back to those children you had left behind, to all the aeons of the past.

And I was here in the under-dusk of the Isar.

At home, we leaned in the bedroom window Of the old Bavarian Gasthaus, And the frogs in the pool beyond thrilled with exuberance, Like a boiling pot the pond crackled with happiness, Like a rattle a child spins round for joy, the night rattled With the extravagance of the frogs, And you leaned your cheek on mine, And I suffered it, wanting to sympathise.

At last, as you stood, your white gown falling from your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, You looked into my eyes, and said: "But this is joy!"

I acquiesced again.

But the shadow of lying was in your eyes, The mother in you, fierce as a murderess, glaring to England, Yearning towards England, towards your young children, Insisting upon your motherhood, devastating.

Still, the joy was there also, you spoke truly, The joy was not to be driven off so easily; Stronger than fear or destructive mother-love, it stood flickering; The frogs helped also, whirring away.

Yet how I have learned to know that look in your eyes Of horrid sorrow!

How I know that glitter of salt, dry, sterile, sharp, corrosive salt!

Not tears, but white sharp brine Making hideous your eyes.

I have seen it, felt it in my mouth, my throat, my chest, my belly, Burning of powerful salt, burning, eating through my defenceless nakedness.

I have been thrust into white, sharp crystals, Writhing, twisting, superpenetrated.

Ah, Lot's Wife, Lot's Wife!

The pillar of salt, the whirling, horrible column of salt, like a waterspout That has enveloped me!

Snow of salt, white, burning, eating salt In which I have writhed.

Lot's Wife!--Not Wife, but Mother.

I have learned to curse your motherhood, You pillar of salt accursed.

I have cursed motherhood because of you, Accursed, base motherhood!

I long for the time to come, when the curse against you will have gone out of my heart.

But it has not gone yet.

Nevertheless, once, the frogs, the globe-flowers of Bavaria, the glow-worms Gave me sweet lymph against the salt-burns, There is a kindness in the very rain.

Therefore, even in the hour of my deepest, pas- sionate malediction I try to remember it is also well between us.

That you are with me in the end.

That you never look quite back; nine-tenths, ah, more You look round over your shoulder; But never quite back.

Nevertheless the curse against you is still in my heart Like a deep, deep burn.

The curse against all mothers.

All mothers who fortify themselves in motherhood, devastating the vision.

They are accursed, and the curse is not taken off It burns within me like a deep, old burn, And oh, I wish it was better.

BEUERBERG

_ON THE BALCONY_

IN front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow; And between us and it, the thunder; And down below in the green wheat, the labourers Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber I distinguish the scent of your hair: so now the limber Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green glacier river floats A dark boat through the gloom--and whither?

The thunder roars. But still we have each other!

The naked lightnings in the heavens dither And disappear--what have we but each other?

The boat has gone.

ICKING

_FROHNLEICHNAM_