Equinox I (04).pdf
Equinox I (04).pdf Equinox I (04).pdf
322 THE EQUINOX gently, ever as Spring's flying feet touch with unaccustomed primroses the wood, I say it—She was bad.” Then the third worm, which came from the woman's heart, turned to the other two, and said: “I am her heart ... her beautiful, beautiful heart. “What do you know of the deeds of the Queen who were never in her council chamber? “When you were bold, I was perhaps afraid, and when you exulted, there was I know not what trouble of sadness throbbing within me. All that you were I sustained: all your pleasure stirred through me, and you but harvested that which I sowed. “When you were all aflame, it was I who lit you, and you could not even be sad without me. “Not less tender than the inviting curl—like a curled and fluffy feather of coral—with which you who were her lips made welcome to some man, was the slow hypnotic wave of my thurible with whose essence I drenched ever cell of her body. I say that she was good, for she was human and she loved, oh! so sweetly, so delicately, so tenderly. “What you did, you, her lips, her eyes and her other senses, was but to make vain effigies of our interior delight, to shatter in the broken shards of translation the mysterious silent beauty of the vase itself. “I, the woman's heart of her, was like to a cave were thousands of voices of unborn children cried softly in the dark, where one felt their outstretching hands in pale and piteous appeal, as one may hear the early lilies break through the encompassing earth. In me were the seed of kisses that could only burst to flower in a hundred years to come.
THE THREE WORMS “I am her heart, her ordinary, commonplace woman's heart. Commonplace! Ah! nothing is so mysterious as the commonplace, for it is only Subtlety sleeping and holding its hands a little while. A country clod is more interesting than the most awake and magnetic of geniuses, even as the veiled and cloistered odours of Spring with which one knows the earth is tingling in Winter are more delirious and exciting than the naked bosoms of May. “Will you believe me, that, but I know not what exquisite contradiction, the sweetest kiss was ever a pang to her, and yielding was only less terrible than denial? “On my small insistent beat have lain heads that were heavy with great dreams: men of action and men of fancy who loved her and were loved, it may be, a little of her too. I have been the couch of treaties and the pillow of financial strifes, and on me much uncoined gold has slept through dreamless transparent nights. “Once a poet received her favours, and his head, bowed and weighted with its spongy amorphous magic, rested on me like a honeycomb, all giddy and vibrant with perfume and emotion. “And once an old mother's head, gray and weary with its long rolling down the years, found on me the unexpected peace and happiness of the old. For the old are so lonely, and no one is their friend. . . . So, my brothers, I give you the key of all her secrets except that secret which she shares with Time and herself. “I can make all plain except my own mystery, which is the tragedy of everyone, worm, or man, or God. “Blaspheme no more in such childish, imitative fashion! 323
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322<br />
THE EQUINOX<br />
gently, ever as Spring's flying feet touch with unaccustomed<br />
primroses the wood, I say it—She was bad.”<br />
Then the third worm, which came from the woman's heart,<br />
turned to the other two, and said:<br />
“I am her heart ... her beautiful, beautiful heart.<br />
“What do you know of the deeds of the Queen who were<br />
never in her council chamber?<br />
“When you were bold, I was perhaps afraid, and when you<br />
exulted, there was I know not what trouble of sadness throbbing<br />
within me. All that you were I sustained: all your pleasure<br />
stirred through me, and you but harvested that which I sowed.<br />
“When you were all aflame, it was I who lit you, and you<br />
could not even be sad without me.<br />
“Not less tender than the inviting curl—like a curled and<br />
fluffy feather of coral—with which you who were her lips<br />
made welcome to some man, was the slow hypnotic wave of<br />
my thurible with whose essence I drenched ever cell of her<br />
body. I say that she was good, for she was human and she<br />
loved, oh! so sweetly, so delicately, so tenderly.<br />
“What you did, you, her lips, her eyes and her other<br />
senses, was but to make vain effigies of our interior delight, to<br />
shatter in the broken shards of translation the mysterious<br />
silent beauty of the vase itself.<br />
“I, the woman's heart of her, was like to a cave were<br />
thousands of voices of unborn children cried softly in the dark,<br />
where one felt their outstretching hands in pale and piteous<br />
appeal, as one may hear the early lilies break through the<br />
encompassing earth. In me were the seed of kisses that could<br />
only burst to flower in a hundred years to come.
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