A DRAMA OF EXILE.
47
Its tail in ghastly slime, and stings the dark!
This way a goat leaps, with wild blank of heard;
And here, fantastic fishes duskly float,
Using the calm for waters, while their fins
Throb out slow rhythms along the shallow air!
While images more human—
Eve.How he stands,
That phantasm of a man—who is not thou!
Two phantasms of two men!
Adam.One that sustains,
And one that strives!—resuming, so, the ends
Of manhood's curse of labour.[1]Dost thou see
That phantasm of a woman?—
Eve.I have seen—
But look off to those small humanities,[2]
Which draw me tenderly across my fear,—
Lesser and fainter than my womanhood,
Or yet thy manhood—with strange innocence
Set in the misty lines of head and hand
They lean together! I would gaze on them
Longer and longer, till my watching eyes,—
As the stars do in watching anything,—
Should light them forward from their outline vague,
To clear configuration—
This way a goat leaps, with wild blank of heard;
And here, fantastic fishes duskly float,
Using the calm for waters, while their fins
Throb out slow rhythms along the shallow air!
While images more human—
Eve.How he stands,
That phantasm of a man—who is not thou!
Two phantasms of two men!
Adam.One that sustains,
And one that strives!—resuming, so, the ends
Of manhood's curse of labour.[1]Dost thou see
That phantasm of a woman?—
Eve.I have seen—
But look off to those small humanities,[2]
Which draw me tenderly across my fear,—
Lesser and fainter than my womanhood,
Or yet thy manhood—with strange innocence
Set in the misty lines of head and hand
They lean together! I would gaze on them
Longer and longer, till my watching eyes,—
As the stars do in watching anything,—
Should light them forward from their outline vague,
To clear configuration—
Two Spirits, of organic, and inorganic nature,
arise from the ground.
arise from the ground.
But what Shapes
Rise up between us in the open space,—
And thrust me into horror, back from hope!
Adam. Colossal Shapes—twin sovran images,—
Rise up between us in the open space,—
And thrust me into horror, back from hope!
Adam. Colossal Shapes—twin sovran images,—
- ↑ Adam recognises in Aquarius, the water-bearer,and Sagittarius, the archer, distinct types of the man bearing and the man combatting,—the passive and active forms of human labour. I hope that the preceding zodiacal signs—transferred to the earthly shadow and representative purpose—of Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Pisces, are sufficiently obvious to the reader.
- ↑ Her maternal instinct is excited by Gemini.
