while, nor spinning worth the effort! You who take the moon as in a sieve, and sift Her flake by flake and spread her meaning out; You who roll the stars like jewels in your palm, So that they seem to utter themselves aloud; You who steep from out the days their colour, Reveal the universal tint that dyes Their web; who shadow the sun's great gestures and expressions So that he seems a stranger in his passing; Who voice the dumb night fittingly; Sea, you shadow of all things, now mock us to death with your shadowing. BOURNEMOUTH 

  

  

 HYMN TO PRIAPUS 

      MY love lies underground With her face upturned to mine, And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss That ended her life and mine. I dance at the Christmas party Under the mistletoe Along with a ripe, slack country lass Jostling to and fro. The big, soft country lass, Like a loose sheaf of wheat Slipped through my arms on the threshing floor At my feet. The warm, soft country lass, Sweet as an armful of wheat At threshing-time broken, was broken For me, and ah, it was sweet! Now I am going home Fulfilled and alone, I see the great Orion standing Looking down. He's the star of my first beloved Love-making. The witness of all that bitter-sweet Heart-aching. Now he sees this as well, This last commission. Nor do I get any look Of admonition. He can add the reckoning up I suppose, between now and then, Having walked himself in the thorny, difficult Ways of men. He has done as I have done No doubt:      Remembered and forgotten Turn and about. My love lies underground With her face upturned to mine, And her mouth unclosed in the last long kiss That ended her life and mine. She fares in the stark immortal Fields of death; I in these goodly, frozen Fields beneath. Something in me remembers And will not forget. The stream of my life in the darkness Deathward set! And something in me has forgotten, Has ceased to care. Desire comes up, and contentment Is debonair. I, who am worn and careful, How much do I care? How is it I grin then, and chuckle Over despair? Grief, grief, I suppose and sufficient Grief makes us free To be faithless and faithful together As we have to be. 

  

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