I<\/p>\n
So you have swept me back,
\nI who have walked with the live souls
\nabove the earth,
\nI who have slept among the live flowers
\nat last;<\/p>\n
so for your arrogance
\nand your ruthlessness
\nI am swept back
\nwhere dead lichens drip
\ndead cinders upon moss of ash;<\/p>\n
so for your arrogance
\nI am broken at last,
\nI who had lived unconscious,
\nwho was almost forgot;<\/p>\n
if you had let me wait
\nI had grown from listlessness into peace,
\nif you had let me rest with the dead,
\nI had forgot you
\nand the past.<\/p>\n
II<\/p>\n
Here only flame upon flame
\nand black among the red sparks,
\nstreaks of black and light
\ngrown colorless<\/p>\n
why did you turn back,
\nthat hell should be reinhabited
\nof myself thus
\nswept into nothingness?<\/p>\n
why did you turn back?
\nwhy did you glance back?
\nwhy did you hesitate for that moment?
\nwhy did you bend your face
\ncaught with the flame of the upper earth,
\nabove my face?<\/p>\n
what was it that crossed my face
\nwith the light from yours
\nand your glance?
\nwhat was it you saw in my face?
\nthe light of your own face,
\nthe fire of your own presence?<\/p>\n
what had my face to offer
\nbut reflex of the earth,
\nhyacinth colour
\ncaught from the raw fissure in the rock
\nwhere the light struck,
\nand the colour of azure crocuses,
\nand the bright surface of gold crocuses
\nand of the wind-flower,
\nswift in its veins as lightning
\nand as white.<\/p>\n
III<\/p>\n
Saffron from the fringe of the earth,
\nwild saffron that has bent
\nover the sharp edge of earth,
\nall the flowers that cut through the earth,
\nall, all the flowers are lost;
\neverything is lost,
\neverything is crossed with black,
\nblack upon black
\nand worse than black,
\nthis colourless light.<\/p>\n
IV<\/p>\n
Fringe upon fringe
\nof blue crocuses,
\ncrocuses, walled against blue of themselves,
\nblue of that upper earth.
\nblue of the depth upon depth of flowers,
\nlost;
\nflowers, if I could have taken once my breath of them,
\nenough of them,
\nmore than earth,
\neven than of the upper earth,
\nhad passed with me
\nbeneath the earth;<\/p>\n
If I could have caught up from the earth,
\nthe whole of the flowers of the earth,
\nif once I could have breathed into myself
\nthe very golden crocuses
\nand the red
\nand the very golden hearts of the first saffron,
\nthe whole of the golden mass,
\nthe whole of the great fragrance,
\nI could have dared the loss.<\/p>\n
V<\/p>\n
So for your arrogance
\nand your ruthlessness
\nI have lost the earth
\nand the flowers of the earth,
\nand the live souls above the earth,
\nand you who passed across the light
\nand reached
\nruthless;
\nyou who have your own light,
\nwho are to yourself a presence,
\nwho need no presence;<\/p>\n
yet for all your arrogance
\nand your glance,
\nI tell you this:<\/p>\n
such loss is no loss,
\nsuch terror, such coils and strands and pitfalls
\nof blackness
\nsuch terror
\nis no loss;<\/p>\n
hell is no worse than your earth
\nabove the earth,
\nhell is no worse,
\nno, nor your flowers
\nnor your veins of light
\nnor your presence,
\na loss;
\nmy hell is no worse than yours
\nthough you pass among the flowers and speak
\nwith the spirits above the earth.<\/p>\n
VI<\/p>\n
Against the black
\nI have more fervour
\nthan you in all the splendour of that place,
\nagainst the blackness
\nand the stark grey
\nI have more light;
\nand the flowers,
\nif I should tell you,
\nyou would turn from your own fit paths
\ntoward hell,
\nturn again and glance back
\nand I would sink into a place even more terrible than this.<\/p>\n
VII<\/p>\n
At least I have the flowers of myself,
\nand my thoughts, no god
\ncan take that;
\nI have the fervour of myself for a presence
\nand my own spirit for light;
\nand my spirit with its loss
\nknows this;
\nthough small against the black,
\nsmall against the formless rocks,
\nhell must break before I am lost;<\/p>\n
before I am lost,
\nhell must open like a red rose
\nfor the dead to pass.<\/p>\n
(1916)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I So you have swept me back, I who have walked with the live souls above the earth, I who have slept among the live flowers at last; so for your arrogance and your ruthlessness I am swept back where dead lichens drip dead cinders upon moss of ash; so for your arrogance I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}