Джордж Сильвестр Вирек (George Sylvester Viereck)

The Candle and the Flame

  Thy hands are like cool herbs that bring
    Balm to men’s hearts, upon them laid;
    Thy lovely-petalled lips are made
  As any blossom of the spring.
  But in thine eyes there is a thing,
    O Love, that makes me half afraid.

  For they are old, those eyes.... They gleam
  Between the waking and the dream
    With antique wisdom, like a bright
  Lamp strangled by the temple’s veil,
    That beckons to the acolyte
  Who prays with trembling lips and pale
    In the long watches of the night.

  They are as old as Life. They were
    When proud Gomorrah reared its head
  A new-born city. They were there
    When in the places of the dead
  Men swathed the body of the Lord.
    They visioned Pa-Wak raise the wall
    Of China. They saw Carthage fall
  And marked the grim Hun lead his horde.

  There is no secret anywhere
    Nor any joy or shame that lies
    Not writ somehow in those child-eyes
    Of thine, O Love, in some strange wise.
  Thou art the lad Endymion,
    And that great queen with spice and myrrh
  From Araby, whom Solomon
    Delighted, and the lust of her.

  The legions marching from the sea
  With Cæsar’s cohorts sang of thee,
    How thy fair head was more to him
  Than all the land of Italy.
  Yea, in the old days thou wert she
    Who lured Mark Antony from home
  To death and Egypt, seeing he
    Lost love when he lost Rome.

  Thou saw’st old Tubal strike the lyre,
    Yea, first for thee the poet hurled
  Defiance at God’s starry choir!
  Thou art the romance and the fire,
    Thou art the pageant and the strife,
  The clamour, mounting high and higher,
    From all the lovers in the world
    To all the lords of love and life.

  Through thy slow slumberous long lashes
    Across the languor of thy face
  The gleam of primal passion flashes
    That is as ancient as the race,
    But we that live a little space,
  Which when beholding feel in it
  The horror of the Infinite....

  Perhaps the passions of mankind
    Are but the torches mystical
  Lit by some spirit-hand to find
  The dwelling of the Master-Mind
    That knows the secret of it all,
  In the great darkness and the wind.

  We are the Candle, Love the Flame,
    Each little life-light flickers out,
  Love bides, immortally the same:
  When of life’s fever we shall tire
  He will desert us, and the fire
    Rekindle new in prince or lout.

  Twin-born of knowledge and of lust,
    He was before us, he shall be
    Indifferent still of thee and me,
  When shattered is life’s golden cup.
  When thy young limbs are shrivelled up,
  And when my heart is turned to dust.

  Nay, sweet, smile not to know at last
    That thou and I, or knave, or fool,
  Are but the involitient tool
  Of some world purpose vague and vast.
  No bar to passion’s fury set,
    With monstrous poppies spice the wine:
    For only drunk are we divine,
  And only mad shall we forget!