FRAGMENTS OF "THE UNICORN"
Lilith
I think beauty is a bad bargain made of life.
Men's iron sinews hew them room in the world
And use deceits to gain them trophies:
O, when our beauty fails us did we not use
Deceits, where were our room in the world—
Only our room in the world?
Are not the songs and devices of men
Moulds they have made after my scarlet mouth,
Of cunning words and contours of bronze
And viols and gathered air?
They without song have sung me
Boldly and shamelessly.
I am no wanton, no harlot;
I have been pleased and smiled my pleasure,
I am a wife with a woman's natural ways.
Yet through the shadow of the pomegranates
Filters a poison day by day,
And to a malady turns
The blond, the ample music of my heart:
Inward to eat my heart
My thoughts are worms that suck my softness all away.
I watch the dumb eyeless hours
Drop their tears, then shapeless moaning drop.
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