DISCORDANTS
by: Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
- ERMILIONED
mouth, tired with many kisses,
- Eyes, that have lighted for so many eyes,--
- Are you not weary yet with countless lovers,
- Desirous now to take even me for prize?
-
- Draw not my glance, nor set my sick heart beating,--
- Body so stripped, for all your silks and lace.
- Do not reach out pale hands to me, seductive,
- Nor slant sly eyes, O subtly smiling face.
-
- For I am drawn to you, like wind I follow,
- Like a warm amorous wind ... though I desire
- Even in dream to keep one face before me,
- One face like fire, and holier than fire.
-
- * * *
-
- I walk beneath these trees, and in this darkness
- Muse beyond seas of her from whom I came,
- While you, with catlike step, steal close beside me,
- Spreading your perfume round me like soft flame.
-
- Ah! should I once stoop face and forehead to you,
- Into and through your sweetness, a night like this,
- In the lime-blossomed darkness feel your bosom,
- Warm and so soft, and find your lips to kiss.
-
- And tear at your strange flesh with crazy fingers,
- And drink with mouth gone mad your eyes' wild wine,
- And cleave to you, body with breathless body,
- Till bestial were exalted to divine,--
-
- Would I again, O lamia silked and scented,
- Out of the slumberous magic of your eyes,
- And your narcotic perfume, soft and febrile,
- Have the romantic hardihood to rise,
-
- And set my heart across great seas of distance
- With love unsullied for her from whom I came?--
- With catlike step you steal beside me, past me,
- Leaving your perfume round me like soft flame.
"Discordants" is reprinted
from Turns and Movies and Other Tales in Verse. Conrad
Aiken. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916. |
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