Equinox I (04).pdf
Equinox I (04).pdf Equinox I (04).pdf
320 THE EQUINOX “I fear she was bad, for from me were twisted such devious messages, such various, unalike reports, that yes and no became counters of speech almost indistinguishable to my thinking. Once, I remember, there trickled from me a vagrant little flow of words, so bitter and so inviting, so poisonous and yet so intoxicating, that the soul for whom they were meant held up the silver goblets of hearing for its own destruction with trembling, greedy hands, covetous and anxious, hungry and afraid. her voice that purled and rippled and sang through me—ah! it was like a kiss caged in her throat, and to hear it made a man a father in longing. There are voices like that, and when men hear them, they live a lifetime in an instant, mate, rear children, are widowed, or have their eyes closed for them for the last time by these women whose souls they thus secretly and inviolately espouse.” After a little silence the worm which issued from her eyes then spoke: “I am her eyes, and she was bad, bad as her mouth says. Some of that mouth's warm tribute came indeed to me, and I was shut from seeing with the close lips of men beating time to the superb madness of their love music and rhythmic kisses. And I saw—O what I saw!—mountains that bowed to her, and stringed necklaces of stars that flashed in ecstasy on Eternity's bosom from the very sight of her. Seas over which she passed on a sensuous errand as live and tremulous as the heave of their own great hearts—heaves that are the world's sighs for the little brood that teases it, and festers the green and waving glory of its skin and hair.
THE THREE WORMS “Much have I looked upon—I, the now crawling, damp and sightless evidence of her sight. “I am her eyes. “Empires shone in me: suns set, moons arose, and were drowned like lovely naiads in the waters of the sky. I knew wild flowers so beautiful, that one dared not touch them lest their beauty start to mere ugly life. “I am that quiver of fragile and delicious expectation that shone in the virgin eyes of her when . . . O happy hour! “I am that greediness, that terrible woman's greediness, fierce as drought, relentless as Death, which devours its own portion in the feast of life. “And I too, like her mouth, witness to it that she was evil. The senses are the person in so much as they are the sweet janitors to all that come and go. Through our five portals life only flows, and the flavour of its tides is with us always. I sit in judgment on myself—I where the world could gather itself in one, little, humble, focus-point of curiosity and pep into the garden of her soul—I—where seas could be held calm and captive in a little pool of blue—I—who could consume mountains in a flash, and devour the dawn, I who could bit the moon trail her white limbs for my pleasure through the windy bagnios of the sky. “I sit in judgment and condemn, for often I was a sword when Truth was a little child, and the breasts of my beauty I gave to Worthlessness in the stinking lupanars of Treachery and Deceit. “Brothers, like the afterlight of day, I the light of her life consort with the shadows of evening, and I say it softly, 321
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THE THREE WORMS<br />
“Much have I looked upon—I, the now crawling, damp<br />
and sightless evidence of her sight.<br />
“I am her eyes.<br />
“Empires shone in me: suns set, moons arose, and were<br />
drowned like lovely naiads in the waters of the sky. I knew<br />
wild flowers so beautiful, that one dared not touch them lest<br />
their beauty start to mere ugly life.<br />
“I am that quiver of fragile and delicious expectation<br />
that shone in the virgin eyes of her when . . . O happy<br />
hour!<br />
“I am that greediness, that terrible woman's greediness,<br />
fierce as drought, relentless as Death, which devours its own<br />
portion in the feast of life.<br />
“And I too, like her mouth, witness to it that she was evil.<br />
The senses are the person in so much as they are the sweet<br />
janitors to all that come and go. Through our five portals life<br />
only flows, and the flavour of its tides is with us always. I sit<br />
in judgment on myself—I where the world could gather itself<br />
in one, little, humble, focus-point of curiosity and pep into the<br />
garden of her soul—I—where seas could be held calm and<br />
captive in a little pool of blue—I—who could consume<br />
mountains in a flash, and devour the dawn, I who could bit the<br />
moon trail her white limbs for my pleasure through the windy<br />
bagnios of the sky.<br />
“I sit in judgment and condemn, for often I was a sword<br />
when Truth was a little child, and the breasts of my beauty I<br />
gave to Worthlessness in the stinking lupanars of Treachery<br />
and Deceit.<br />
“Brothers, like the afterlight of day, I the light of her life<br />
consort with the shadows of evening, and I say it softly,<br />
321
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