A FAINT, sickening scent of
irises
Persists all
morning. Here in a jar on the table
A fine proud spike of purple irises
Rising above the class-room
litter, makes me unable
To see the class’s lifted and bended
faces
Save in a
broken pattern, amid purple and gold and
sable.
I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in
its breathless
Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast
you
With fire on your cheeks and your brow and
your
chin as you dipped
Your face in the marigold
bunch, to touch and contrast
you,
Your own dark mouth with the
bridal faint lady-smocks,
Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should
not
outlast.
You amid the bog-end’s yellow
incantation,
You
sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above,
Me, your shadow on the
bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,
Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you
love;
You, your soul
like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,
You with your face all rich, like the sheen of
a
dove.
You are always asking, do I
remember, remember
The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up
And kindled you over deep with
a cast of gold?
You
ask again, do the healing days close up
The open darkness which then
drew us in,
The dark
which then drank up our brimming cup.
You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves,
in the fire of
night
Burnt like a sacrifice; you
invisible;
Only the
fire of darkness, and the scent of you!
— And yes,
thank God, it still is possible
The healing days shall close the darkness
up
Wherein we
fainted like a smoke or dew.
Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now,
thank God,
The fire
of night is gone, and your face is ash
Indistinguishable on the grey, chill
day;
The night has
burnt us out, at last the good
Dark fire burns on untroubled, without
clash
Of you upon
the dead leaves saying me Yea.