Chapter I

Though your womb be the mother of bliss,
O Earth, and the mother of woes,
Though your large hands be full of the strange gifts of life, the kiss,
and the worm, and the rose,
The thunders that break from the sky of fate, and the flash in the pan,
To me they are empty, for I know all things encompassed of man.
The devious desires that crouch through the brain like monsters that
nest in the sea,
Pass--pageants of ghosts--through the luminous eyes of one who is dear
to me.
The other--all pangs and delights of the visible world and its quests,
Are engraved in the exquisite curve of her throat and the hieroglyphs
of her breasts.
One rides on the wingèd chimaera of dreams through aeons purple and red,
The other--like new-mown grass is the scent of her flesh in my bed.
What can you give me of joy, Earth, what of bitter and sweet?
_I have loved Helen of Troy and the blonde Marguerite._