Chapter I: HAVE been so innerly proud, and so long alone,

Do not leave me, or I shall break. Do not leave me.

What should I do if you were gone again So soon? What should I look for? Where should I go? What should I be, I myself, "I"? What would it mean, this I?

Do not leave me.

What should I think of death? If I died, it would not be you: It would be simply the same Lack of you. The same want, life or death, Unfulfilment, The same insanity of space You not there for me.

Think, I daren't die For fear of the lack in death. And I daren't live.

Unless there were a morphine or a drug.

I would bear the pain. But always, strong, unremitting It would make me not me. The thing with my body that would go on living Would not be me. Neither life nor death could help.

Think, I couldn't look towards death Nor towards the future: Only not look. Only myself Stand still and bind and blind myself.

God, that I have no choice! That my own fulfilment is up against me Timelessly! The burden of self-accomplishment! The charge of fulfilment! And God, that she is _necessary!_ _Necessary,_ and I have no choice!

Do not leave me.

_A YOUNG WIFE_

THE pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear.

I walk in fear of you. The darkness starts up where You stand, and the night comes through Your eyes when you look at me.

Ah never before did I see The shadows that live in the sun!

Now every tall glad tree Turns round its back to the sun And looks down on the ground, to see The shadow it used to shun.

At the foot of each glowing thing A night lies looking up.

Oh, and I want to sing And dance, but I can't lift up My eyes from the shadows: dark They lie spilt round the cup.

What is it?--Hark The faint fine seethe in the air!

Like the seething sound in a shell! It is death still seething where The wild-flower shakes its bell And the sky lark twinkles blue--

The pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear.

_GREEN_

THE dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone For the first time, now for the first time seen.

ICKING

_RIVER ROSES_

BY the Isar, in the twilight We were wandering and singing, By the Isar, in the evening We climbed the huntsman's ladder and sat swinging In the fir-tree overlooking the marshes, While river met with river, and the ringing Of their pale-green glacier water filled the evening.

By the Isar, in the twilight We found the dark wild roses Hanging red at the river; and simmering Frogs were singing, and over the river closes Was savour of ice and of roses; and glimmering Fear was abroad. We whispered: "No one knows us. Let it be as the snake disposes Here in this simmering marsh."

KLOSTER SCHAEFTLARN

_GLOIRE DE DIJON_

WHEN she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window And the sunbeams catch her Glistening white on the shoulders, While down her sides the mellow Golden shadow glows as She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts Sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses.

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders Glisten as silver, they crumple up Like wet and falling roses, and I listen For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals. In the window full of sunlight Concentrates her golden shadow Fold on fold, until it glows as Mellow as the glory roses.

ICKING

_ROSES ON THE BREAKFAST TABLE_

JUST a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar Are fallen, and their mauve-red petals on the cloth Float like boats on a river, while other Roses are ready to fall, reluctant and loth.

She laughs at me across the table, saying I am beautiful. I look at the rumpled young roses And suddenly realise, in them as in me, How lovely the present is that this day discloses.

_I AM LIKE A ROSE_

I AM myself at last; now I achieve My very self. I, with the wonder mellow, Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear And single me, perfected from my fellow.

Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought Itself more sheer and naked out of the green In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.

_ROSE OF ALL THE WORLD_