1 Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel

2 Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;

3 The heavy white limbs, and the cruel

4 Red mouth like a venomous flower;

5 When these are gone by with their glories,

6 What shall rest of thee then, what remain,

8 Our Lady of Pain?

9 Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;

10 But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,

11 Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,

12 And then they would haunt thee in heaven:

13 Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,

14 And the loves that complete and control

15 All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows

16 That wear out the soul.

17 O garment not golden but gilded,

18 O garden where all men may dwell,

19 O tower not of ivory, but builded

20 By hands that reach heaven from hell;

21 O mystical rose of the mire,

22 O house not of gold but of gain,

23 O house of unquenchable fire,

24 Our Lady of Pain!

25 O lips full of lust and of laughter,

26 Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,

27 Bite hard, lest remembrance come after

28 And press with new lips where you pressed.

29 For my heart too springs up at the pressure,

30 Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;

31 Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,

32 Ere pain come in turn.

33 In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,

34 Out of sight though they lie of to-day,

35 There have been and there yet shall be sorrows

36 That smite not and bite not in play.

37 The life and the love thou despisest,

38 These hurt us indeed, and in vain,

39 O wise among women, and wisest,

40 Our Lady of Pain.

41 Who gave thee thy wisdom? what stories

42 That stung thee, what visions that smote?

43 Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,

44 When desire took thee first by the throat?

45 What bud was the shell of a blossom

46 That all men may smell to and pluck?

47 What milk fed thee first at what bosom?

48 What sins gave thee suck?

49 We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,

50 Thou art noble and nude and antique;

52 Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek.

53 We play with light loves in the portal,

54 And wince and relent and refrain;

55 Loves die, and we know thee immortal,

56 Our Lady of Pain.

57 Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;

58 Thou art fed with perpetual breath,

59 And alive after infinite changes,

60 And fresh from the kisses of death;

61 Of languors rekindled and rallied,

62 Of barren delights and unclean,

63 Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid

64 And poisonous queen.

65 Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?

66 Men touch them, and change in a trice

67 The lilies and languors of virtue

68 For the raptures and roses of vice;

69 Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,

70 These crown and caress thee and chain,

71 O splendid and sterile Dolores,

72 Our Lady of Pain.

73 There are sins it may be to discover,

74 There are deeds it may be to delight.

75 What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,

76 What new passions for daytime or night?

77 What spells that they know not a word of

78 Whose lives are as leaves overblown?

79 What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,

80 Unwritten, unknown?

81 Ah beautiful passionate body

82 That never has ached with a heart!

83 On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,

84 Though they sting till it shudder and smart,

85 More kind than the love we adore is,

86 They hurt not the heart or the brain,

87 O bitter and tender Dolores,

88 Our Lady of Pain.

89 As our kisses relax and redouble,

90 From the lips and the foam and the fangs

91 Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble,

92 No dream of impossible pangs?

93 With the sweet of the sins of old ages

94 Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?

95 Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,

96 Too bitter the core.

97 Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,

98 And bared all thy beauties to one?

99 Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,

100 If the worst that can be has been done?

101 But sweet as the rind was the core is;

102 We are fain of thee still, we are fain,

103 O sanguine and subtle Dolores,

104 Our Lady of Pain.

105 By the hunger of change and emotion,

106 By the thirst of unbearable things,

107 By despair, the twin-born of devotion,

108 By the pleasure that winces and stings,

109 The delight that consumes the desire,

110 The desire that outruns the delight,

111 By the cruelty deaf as a fire

112 And blind as the night,

113 By the ravenous teeth that have smitten

114 Through the kisses that blossom and bud,

115 By the lips intertwisted and bitten

116 Till the foam has a savour of blood,

117 By the pulse as it rises and falters,

118 By the hands as they slacken and strain,

119 I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,

120 Our Lady of Pain.

121 Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining

122 The light fire in the veins of a boy?

123 But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,

124 Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;

125 Less careful of labour and glory

126 Than the elders whose hair has uncurled:

127 And young, but with fancies as hoary

128 And grey as the world.

129 I have passed from the outermost portal

130 To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;

131 What care though the service be mortal?

132 O our Lady of Torture, what care?

133 All thine the last wine that I pour is,

134 The last in the chalice we drain,

135 O fierce and luxurious Dolores,

136 Our Lady of Pain.

137 All thine the new wine of desire,

138 The fruit of four lips as they clung

139 Till the hair and the eyelids took fire,

140 The foam of a serpentine tongue,

141 The froth of the serpents of pleasure,

142 More salt than the foam of the sea,

143 Now felt as a flame, now at leisure

144 As wine shed for me.

145 Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,

146 Marked cross from the womb and perverse!

147 They have found out the secret to cozen

148 The gods that constrain us and curse;

149 They alone, they are wise, and none other;

150 Give me place, even me, in their train,

151 O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,

152 Our Lady of Pain.

153 For the crown of our life as it closes

154 Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;

155 No thorns go as deep as a rose's,

156 And love is more cruel than lust.

157 Time turns the old days to derision,

158 Our loves into corpses or wives;

159 And marriage and death and division

160 Make barren our lives.

161 And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,

162 And satiate with comfortless hours;

163 And we know thee, how all men belie thee,

164 And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;

165 The passion that slays and recovers,

166 The pangs and the kisses that rain

167 On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,

168 Our Lady of Pain.

169 The desire of thy furious embraces

170 Is more than the wisdom of years,

171 On the blossom though blood lie in traces,

172 Though the foliage be sodden with tears.

173 For the lords in whose keeping the door is

174 That opens on all who draw breath

175 Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores,

176 The myrtle to death.

177 And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,

178 And they mixed and made peace after strife;

179 Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;

180 Death tingled with blood, and was life.

181 Like lovers they melted and tingled,

182 In the dusk of thine innermost fane;

183 In the darkness they murmured and mingled,

184 Our Lady of Pain.

185 In a twilight where virtues are vices,

186 In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,

187 To a tune that enthralls and entices,

188 They were wed, and the twain were as one.

189 For the tune from thine altar hath sounded

190 Since God bade the world's work begin,

191 And the fume of thine incense abounded,

192 To sweeten the sin.

193 Love listens, and paler than ashes,

194 Through his curls as the crown on them slips,

195 Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,

196 And laughs with insatiable lips.

197 Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,

198 With music that scares the profane;

199 Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,

200 Our Lady of Pain.

201 Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,

202 Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;

203 In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,

204 In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.

205 In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,

206 In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;

207 Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him

208 Asleep and awake.

209 Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses

210 With juice not of fruit nor of bud;

211 When the sense in the spirit reposes,

212 Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.

213 Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,

214 Who would live and not languish or feign,

215 O sleepless and deadly Dolores,

216 Our Lady of Pain.

217 Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,

218 In a lull of the fires of thy life,

219 Of the days without name, without number,

220 When thy will stung the world into strife;

221 When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passion

222 Smote kings as they revelled in Rome;

224 Foam-white, from the foam?

225 When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;

226 When the city lay red from thy rods,

227 And thine hands were as arrows to scatter

228 The children of change and their gods;

229 When the blood of thy foemen made fervent

230 A sand never moist from the main,

231 As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,

232 Our Lady of Pain.

233 On sands by the storm never shaken,

234 Nor wet from the washing of tides;

235 Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,

236 Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;

237 But red from the print of thy paces,

238 Made smooth for the world and its lords,

239 Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,

240 And splendid with swords.

241 There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,

242 Drew bitter and perilous breath;

243 There torments laid hold on the treasure

244 Of limbs too delicious for death;

245 When thy gardens were lit with live torches;

246 When the world was a steed for thy rein;

247 When the nations lay prone in thy porches,

248 Our Lady of Pain.

249 When, with flame all around him aspirant,

250 Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,

251 The implacable beautiful tyrant,

252 Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;

253 And a sound as the sound of loud water

254 Smote far through the flight of the fires,

255 And mixed with the lightning of slaughter

256 A thunder of lyres.

257 Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,

258 The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?

259 Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,

260 For these, in a world of new things?

261 But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,

262 No hunger compel to complain

263 Those lips that no bloodshed could satiate,

264 Our Lady of Pain.

265 As of old when the world's heart was lighter,

266 Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,

267 The white wealth of thy body made whiter

268 By the blushes of amorous blows,

269 And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,

270 And branded by kisses that bruise;

271 When all shall be gone that now lingers,

272 Ah, what shall we lose?

273 Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,

274 And thy limbs are as melodies yet,

275 And move to the music of passion

276 With lithe and lascivious regret.

277 What ailed us, O gods, to desert you

278 For creeds that refuse and restrain?

279 Come down and redeem us from virtue,

280 Our Lady of Pain.

282 But the flame has not fallen from this;

283 Though obscure be the god, and though nameless

284 The eyes and the hair that we kiss;

285 Low fires that love sits by and forges

286 Fresh heads for his arrows and thine;

287 Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies

288 With kisses and wine.

289 Thy skin changes country and colour,

290 And shrivels or swells to a snake's.

291 Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,

292 We know it, the flames and the flakes,

293 Red brands on it smitten and bitten,

294 Round skies where a star is a stain,

295 And the leaves with thy litanies written,

296 Our Lady of Pain.

297 On thy bosom though many a kiss be,

298 There are none such as knew it of old.

300 Male ringlets or feminine gold,

301 That thy lips met with under the statue,

302 Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves

303 From the eyes of the garden-god at you

304 Across the fig-leaves?

305 Then still, through dry seasons and moister,

306 One god had a wreath to his shrine;

308 And Venus rose red out of wine.

309 We have all done amiss, choosing rather

310 Such loves as the wise gods disdain;

311 Intercede for us thou with thy father,

312 Our Lady of Pain.

313 In spring he had crowns of his garden,

314 Red corn in the heat of the year,

315 Then hoary green olives that harden

316 When the grape-blossom freezes with fear;

317 And milk-budded myrtles with Venus

318 And vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;

319 And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,

320 A visible God."

321 What broke off the garlands that girt you?

322 What sundered you spirit and clay?

323 Weak sins yet alive are as virtue

324 To the strength of the sins of that day.

325 For dried is the blood of thy lover,

326 Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;

327 Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,

328 Our Lady of Pain?"

329 Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:

330 Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,

331 And rears not the bountiful token

332 And spreads not the fatherly feast.

333 From the midmost of Ida, from shady

334 Recesses that murmur at morn,

335 They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,

336 A goddess new-born.

337 And the chaplets of old are above us,

338 And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;

339 Old poets outsing and outlove us,

340 And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.

341 Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,

342 With such lips as he sang with, again?

343 Intercede for us all of thy pity,

344 Our Lady of Pain.

345 Out of Dindymus heavily laden

346 Her lions draw bound and unfed

347 A mother, a mortal, a maiden,

348 A queen over death and the dead.

349 She is cold, and her habit is lowly,

350 Her temple of branches and sods;

351 Most fruitful and virginal, holy,

352 A mother of gods.

353 She hath wasted with fire thine high places,

354 She hath hidden and marred and made sad

355 The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces

356 Of gods that were goodly and glad.

357 She slays, and her hands are not bloody;

358 She moves as a moon in the wane,

359 White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,

360 Our Lady of Pain.

361 They shall pass and their places be taken,

362 The gods and the priests that are pure.

363 They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?

364 They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?

365 Death laughs, breathing close and relentless

366 In the nostrils and eyelids of lust,

367 With a pinch in his fingers of scentless

368 And delicate dust.

369 But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;

370 Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,

371 As the rod to a serpent that hisses,

372 As the serpent again to a rod.

373 Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;

374 Thou shalt live until evil be slain,

375 And good shall die first, said thy prophet,

376 Our Lady of Pain.

377 Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,

378 Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,

379 Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,

380 Sin's child by incestuous Death?

381 Did he find out in fire at his waking,

382 Or discern as his eyelids lost light,

383 When the bands of the body were breaking

384 And all came in sight?

385 Who has known all the evil before us,

386 Or the tyrannous secrets of time?

387 Though we match not the dead men that bore us

388 At a song, at a kiss, at a crime --

389 Though the heathen outface and outlive us,

390 And our lives and our longings are twain --

391 Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,

392 Our Lady of Pain.

393 Who are we that embalm and embrace thee

394 With spices and savours of song?

395 What is time, that his children should face thee?

396 What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?

397 I could hurt thee -- but pain would delight thee;

398 Or caress thee -- but love would repel;

399 And the lovers whose lips would excite thee

400 Are serpents in hell.

401 Who now shall content thee as they did,

402 Thy lovers, when temples were built

403 And the hair of the sacrifice braided

404 And the blood of the sacrifice spilt,

406 In Aphaca red from thy reign,

407 Who embraced thee with awful embraces,

408 Our Lady of Pain?

411 Do their hands as we touch come between us?

412 Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?

413 From their lips have thy lips taken fever,

414 With the blood of their bodies grown red?

415 Hast thou left upon earth a believer

416 If these men are dead?

417 They were purple of raiment and golden,

418 Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,

419 Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,

420 In marvellous chambers of thine.

421 They are fled, and their footprints escape us,

422 Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,

423 O daughter of Death and Priapus,

424 Our Lady of Pain.

425 What ails us to fear overmeasure,

426 To praise thee with timorous breath,

427 O mistress and mother of pleasure,

428 The one thing as certain as death?

429 We shall change as the things that we cherish,

430 Shall fade as they faded before,

431 As foam upon water shall perish,

432 As sand upon shore.

433 We shall know what the darkness discovers,

434 If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;

435 And our fathers of old, and our lovers,

436 We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.

437 We shall see whether hell be not heaven,

438 Find out whether tares be not grain,

439 And the joys of thee seventy times seven,

440 Our Lady of Pain.