THE TEAK FOREST
by: Laurence Hope (1865-1904)
- HETHER I
loved you who shall say?
- Whether I drifted down your way
- In the endless River of Chance and Change
- And you woke the strange
- Unknown longings that have no names,
- But burn us all in their hidden flames,
- Who shall say?
-
- Life is a strange and a wayward thing:
- We heard the bells of the Temples ring,
- The married children, in passing, sing.
- The month of marriage, the month of spring,
- Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers
- That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,
- And, under a sky more fiercely blue,
- I came to you!
-
- You told me tales of your vivid life
- Where death was cruel and danger rife--
- Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees,
- Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze,
- Of southern noontides and eastern nights,
- Where love grew frantic with strange delights,
- While men were slaying and maidens danced,
- Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced.
- Then, swift as a swallow heading south,
- I kissed your mouth!
-
- One night when the plains were bathed in blood
- From sunset light in a crimson flood,
- We wandered under the young teak trees
- Whose branches whined in the light night breeze;
- You led me down to the water's brink,
- "The Spring where the Panthers came to drink
- At night; there is always water here
- Be the season never so parched and sere."
- Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men?
- I fain would have tasted your life-blood then.
-
- The night fell swiftly; this sudden land
- Can never lend us a twilight strand
- 'Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night,
- But takes--as it gives--at once, the light.
- We laid us down on the steep hillside,
- While far below us wild peacocks cried,
- And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass,
- The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass.
- We listened; knew not whether they went
- On love or hunger the more intent.
- And under your kisses I hardly knew
- Whether I loved or hated you.
-
- But your words were flame and your kisses fire,
- And who shall resist a strong desire?
- Not I, whose life is a broken boat
- On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat.
- And whether I came in love or hate,
- That I came to you was written by Fate
- In every hue of the blood-red sky,
- In every tone of the peacocks' cry.
-
- While every gust of the Jungle night
- Was fanning the flame you had set alight.
- For these things have power to stir the blood
- And compel us all to their own chance mood.
- And to love or not we are no more free
- Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.
-
- We are ever and always slaves of these,
- Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze,
- Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air,
- Of the half heard owl from the far off lair.
- These chance things muster us ever. Compel
- To the heights of Heaven, the depths of Hell.
-
- Whether I love you? You do not ask
- Nor waste yourself on the thankless task.
- I give your kisses at least return,
- What matter whether they freeze or burn.
- I feel the strength of your fervent arms,
- What matter whether it heals or harms.
-
- You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent.
- You ask no questions, but rest content
- So I am with you to take your kiss,
- And perhaps I value you more for this.
- For this is Wisdom; to love, to live,
- To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give,
- To ask no question, to make no prayer,
- To kiss the lips and caress the hair,
- Speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow,--
- To have,--to hold,--and,--in time,--let go!
-
- And this is our Wisdom: we rest together
- On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather,
- And watch the skies as they pale and burn,
- The golden stars in their orbits turn,
- While love is with us, and Time and Peace,
- And life has nothing to give but these,
- But, whether you love me, who shall say.
- Or whether you, drifting down my way
- In the great sad River of Chance and Change,
- With your looks so weary and words so strange,
- Lit my soul from some hidden flame
- To a passionate longing without a name,
- Who shall say?
- Not I, who am but a broaken boat,
- Content for a while to drift afloat
- In the little noontide of love's delights
- Between two Nights.
"The Teak Forest" is reprinted
from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1921. |
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POEMS BY LAURENCE HOPE |
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