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A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A CONCORDANCE TO THE POETRY OF DONALD WANDREI Compiled by Phillip A. Ellis Hippocampus Press ————————— New York Introduction copyright © 2008 by Phillip A. Ellis Published by Hippocampus Press P.O. Box 641, New York, NY 10156. www.hippocampuspress.com Text copyright © 2008 Harold Hughesdon. Hippocampus Press logo designed by Anastasia Damianakos. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. ISBN13: 978-0-9814888-2-0 First Edition 135798642 CONTENTS Introduction............................................................................................ 7 Schedule................................................................................................. 9 A ...................................................................................................... 13 B....................................................................................................... 60 C....................................................................................................... 80 D ...................................................................................................... 95 E..................................................................................................... 115 F ..................................................................................................... 126 G .................................................................................................... 149 H .................................................................................................... 160 I ...................................................................................................... 178 J...................................................................................................... 206 K .................................................................................................... 208 L..................................................................................................... 211 M.................................................................................................... 229 N .................................................................................................... 250 O .................................................................................................... 261 P ..................................................................................................... 286 Q .................................................................................................... 299 R..................................................................................................... 300 S ..................................................................................................... 310 T..................................................................................................... 349 U .................................................................................................... 409 V .................................................................................................... 414 W.................................................................................................... 418 Y .................................................................................................... 452 Index of Poem Titles.......................................................................... 459 INTRODUCTION Donald Wandrei is not much remembered as a poet, now. That he was a poet of beauty and decadence, that he was among the most skilled poets in H. P. Lovecraft’s circle of friends and writing associates, and that he has been unjustly neglected as a result of his failure to follow Twentieth Century artistic trends, or to be a member of its leading circles, are points that few scholars and critics of weird literature can deny. The problem with Wandrei is that, thematically, at least, he was a throwback to the late Nineteenth Century. He was a poet, as mentioned, of decadence, but he was also a poet of horrific fantasy. His Sonnets of the Midnight Hours stands in the front ranks of weird verse, surpassed only by the best of Clark Ashton Smith, and, some would argue, surpassing even the best of Lovecraft. Technically, too, he can be considered a throwback, and this can be seen occasionally in his diction, but, whilst his formalist tendencies were out of favour in an age of vers libre, he was likewise out of temper with the mid-century American formalists, for the most part. Serious poets did not write horror. Besides these caveats, there is reason to read Wandrei, as there is to read Lovecraft and Smith. All three were poets with a keen sense of the delicacies of English poetry, even when such could be expressed robustly, and earnestly. Wandrei is not a poet of the masses, like Kipling, or Lawson, nor is he a poet of the elite. He plays a part similar to Victor Daley’s: he is the great imaginitive dreamer in a mundane world. And that is grounds enough for the world’s ignorance, perhaps, of his work. Usually, only the greater poets receive the dignity of a concordance. A concordance lends the work dignity, states its importance. Why, then, has Wandrei deserved such a concordance, if he is so ignored? That the ignorance is unjust, undeserved, is my argument. Wandrei is a fine, if minor poet. And it is with the primary aim of stimulating a close examination of the poems of Wandrei, and their language particularly, that this concordance has been created. It is with this hope that I now present my labours, a modest work that collects the majority of Wandrei’s extant poems. I have started, I hope, this critical process: it is to myself and others that I look to, to fulfil the promise that this concordance offers. Briefly, the concordance is organised alphabetically by the language actually used in the poems. Each entry consists usually of the headword, followed by one or more lines of poetry; the headword is italicised in each line, and a key, consisting of a number assigned to each poem followed by the line number, completes each entry. The poems are listed in numerical order after this introduction, and they consist of the bulk of all extant poems. 8 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The text used for the poems is that of the Hippocampus Press edition, Sanctity and Sin. This is currently the most available edition of Wandrei’s poems, although it neglects the earlier Necronomicon Press edition of Wandrei’s Collected Poems. As with any such venture, there have been debts of gratitude, and for services rendered. I would like to acknowledge the work and advice of S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, Ben Szumskyj, Martin Andersson, and, particularly, Derrick Hussey. The latter has been particularly patient with me, and without his support and enthusiasm this project may have languished for far longer than it has. I would, lastly, like to take this opportunity to thank Dr William Wright, for keeping me sane during the process of compiling this concordance. A CONCORDANCE TO THE POETRY OF DONALD WANDREI SCHEDULE Ecstasy and Other Poems 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 The Voice of Beauty The Song of Autumn Ecstasy Let us Love To-night Vain Warning On some Drawings Sanctity and Sin To Myrrhiline The Song of Oblivion In Madrikor The Woodland Pool Death and the Poet: a Fragment Satiation In Memoriam: George Sterling Bacchanalia Awakening Red Hermaphroditus Aphrodite Amphitrite Philomela A Drinking Song At the Bacchic Revel The Challenger The Greatest Regret Futility From the Shadowlands of Memory The Poet’s Language Nightmare Valerian Dark Odyssey 031 032 033 Largo Aubade Fata Morgana A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei 10 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 Borealis In Memoriam: No Name Dark Odyssey Look Homeward, Angel Under the Grass You will Come back After Bacchus, Eros To Lucasta on her Birthday Villanelle à la Mode For the Perishing Aphrodite Morning Song The Whispering Knoll The Five Lords Lost Atlantis The Plague Ship The Voyagers’ Return to Tyre Chaos Resolved Epithalamium Epilude Poems for Midnight 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 Phantom The Corpse Speaks The Woman at the Window Shadowy Night The Worm-King Incubus The Prehistoric Huntsman Water Sprite Witches’ Sabbath Forest Shapes The Dream that Dies The Sleeper The Moon-Glen Altar The Morning of a Nymph Death and the Traveler: a Fragment Ishmael: I II Sonnets of the Midnight Hours 070 071 072 073 074 075 After Sleep Purple The Old Companions The Head In the Attic The Cocoon Schedule 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 The Metal God The Little Creature The Pool The Prey The Torturers The Statues The Hungry Flowers The Eye The Rack Escape Capture In the Pit The Unknown Color Monstrous Form Nightmare in Green What Followed me? Fantastic Sculpture The Tree The Bell The Ultimate Vision Somewhere Past Ispahan Collected Poems Poems from Broken Mirrors 097 098 099 100 101 102 Fling Wide the Roses Drink! The Dead Mistress My Lady Hath Two Lovely Lips Aftermath Credo Sonnets of the Midnight Hours 103 104 105 106 107 108 Dream-Horror The Grip of Evil Dreams The Creatures The Red Specter Doom Chant to the Dead Moon Magic 109 110 111 112 The Glow The Song The Overtone The Dream 11 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei 12 Dead Fruit of the Fugitive Years 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 The Dream Changes Surrender Though all my Days The Second Beauty Twice Excellent Perfection This Larger Room The Woman Answers The Deadly Calm Corroding Acids With Cat-like Tread Lyrics of Doubt 123 124 A Testament of Desertion To the God of my Fathers 125 126 127 128 129 Marmora The Cypress-Bog A Queen in Other Skies Epitaph to a Lady Portrait of a Lady During a Half Hour Wait while she Finished Dressing The Little Gods Wait Solitary Lines I am Man Golden Poppy 130 131 132 133 134 Sanctity and Sin 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 The Poet’s Lament There was a Smell of Dandelions The Classicist Pedagogues Street Scene... The School of Seduction The Monster Gods Poems from. Invisible Sun 142 143 144 “I am as mad as mad can be,” “Dig and delve” “There was a young woman I know” 145 146 147 [Limerick] Elegy September Hill A A Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Like the pain in a passionate note From a nightingale’s golden throat, Like a perishing star, Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy A little while, For a little while, our life is bright, For a little while, there is light, But a moment will come and death destroy Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, Life is the gift to a slave. After a while shalt go. Never again will a dead girl thrill To a silent lute. All night I bowed before a burning shrine; A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. For many a thousand leagues around A thousand and a thousand years ago, The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; And now at last I crown me with a coronal He strove to bring a light. A lonely traveler on another star; A dreamer in eternity, To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage Who asked and answered in a breath When down the hillside came a long, low crying, A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; 001.1 001.3 001.4 001.8 001.13 003.5 003.7 003.10 003.18 003.21 003.22 003.27 004.14 004.31 004.32 004.33 004.35 004.38 004.42 004.66 004.67 007.18 007.30 007.31 007.32 008.12 010.9 012.40 013.2 013.7 014.3 014.11 014.12 014.33 014.34 015.3 015.4 015.19 015.25 015.33 015.41 015.42 14 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A frantic whisper with the wind is blended A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— A maiden’s kiss The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. There touches his body lightly a shiver, Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, A rapture in the night, A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, Pain, and a choral delight; The clear, pure warble of a nightingale A golden throat, a golden song that fail— The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— A wine-red toast to the health of the host— Contains what a flagon always should! With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— A form that clings to a satyr sings, The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, And fearful regions of a nameless fright, Vampirish beings of a stellar race, What did it matter a thousand years ago That in the later days a boy would come, What will it matter a thousand years from now That once a poet lived and loved and died, And by a hideous world was crucified With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? Was there a goddess in the days of old, Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. There is a language I would fain employ, Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, And every sound a thing of lyric joy. As if a wind had musically stirred And of that thing there came to me a fear And watched a queen of Saturn mourn To watch a little creature pick And drunk a wine of amethyst 015.43 015.45 015.46 015.47 016.4 017.8 018.5 018.7 019.3 019.7 020.11 021.1 021.2 021.3 021.4 021.5 021.7 022.1 022.3 022.6 022.10 023.1 023.2 023.3 023.5 023.6 023.7 024.12 025.8 025.11 026.1 026.2 026.5 026.6 026.7 026.8 027.1 027.3 027.7 027.8 027.14 028.1 028.3 028.4 028.7 029.9 030.11 030.15 030.19 A 15 Fermented in a wizard’s tomb. 030.20 A thousand million years ago, 030.38 With dazzle of a monstrous flame, 030.42 A star they knew before it came. 030.44 Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, 031.13 Of a dream supernal. 033.16 Of a glory I have drunken, 033.21 In a madness it has perished, 033.22 As if a wizard’s wand 034.3 Where night was like a shroud before an altar 036.13 Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, 036.14 Upon a fruitless quest. 036.32 The night that brings a sleep. 036.64 A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, 038.13 And a pebble necklace around his head 038.15 For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: 040.6 I promised you a villanelle, 042.1 You caught me, bound me, with a spell, 042.4 I promised you a villanelle. 042.6 Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, 042.7 I promised you a villanelle. 042.12 Not always empty is a shell, 042.16 I promised you a villanelle; 042.18 Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? 043.4 For a love that was fleeting as day? 043.8 Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, 043.9 Like a drinker of chloral I dream, 043.10 Art thou only a phantom before me, 043.11 Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? 043.16 043.21 Like a flame, like a splendor supernal, In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, 043.22 Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? 043.27 Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly 043.33 And conceals like a curtain the shrine, 043.34 There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, 044.1 There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. 044.2 And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, 044.3 And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. 044.4 From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, 045.2 This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, 045.6 A sibilance that followed as I stole 045.18 Risen a spectre from the dead 046.19 My royal robes like a purple ghost 046.27 On a purple throne. 046.32 Yet we like a woman came to cloy. 046.38 16 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Only fishes keep a seeming For a long and mystic sleep Time has tolled a solemn knell, There could not be so still a sea A heady fragrance filled the air And over all a choral singing. Wherefor, solution distant as a star, A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. A greater wealth your greater love assures Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide A gray dusk mists the air A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. I can not move a thigh, My corpse was once a festering sore A noisome pool as once before. Amid a realm of sorcery, Never a light to mark the trail In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time, There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, Not a creature lived in all the land, Saw only a realm of wet black sand Not a thing disputed the lordly worm Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; All it would find was a plump drowned rat As deathless as ever a worm can be, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise The rocks on a sunken shore. To capture a breast, to hold the hair And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes From a meadowlark’s passionate throat, As a cindering star, Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Like a mist that fades into sodden skies Of the woods to a spot forlorn, She will halt in a secret place Where the trees form a little dark room: Arabesques on a tomb. A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation A thousand and a thousand years ago, Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— 046.39 047.19 047.35 047.39 048.11 049.9 049.27 050.7 051.14 051.32 053.2 053.6 053.20 054.5 054.48 054.54 055.3 056.6 057.1 057.2 057.3 057.6 057.8 057.11 057.13 057.15 057.18 058.11 059.4 059.5 059.7 060.11 060.19 060.24 062.5 062.6 062.7 063.1 063.4 063.8 063.11 063.13 065.6 065.9 065.10 065.12 066.7 067.40 067.56 A Across a purple ground to purple cliffs Across a velvet sky. And when I came. And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. Out of a dusky corner came the stare Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. I came upon a curious great throne A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, A metal titan shapen like a cone, Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Unto my feet a little trickle crept With blood that had so curious a glow; At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, A tolling like a myriad decibels Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, With eyes of golden fury; while a score The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. A savage, indestructible enemy. To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. I found my leg become a hellish root, A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, The leering of a huge and sightless eye. They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, Caught me with safety but a league away. There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, A glowing form, it drifted on a course A sentient entity from hell, alive. Atop a mountain measurelessly high That pierced the blackness of a starless sky A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry As of a lost and hungry child. Then die A giant shape part human, part despair, The face a group of eyes above a blur From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, And of that thing swept over me a fear And every forward step a weary strain. Save one upon a dais standing tall, The naked torso of a goddess glowing Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest 17 071.2 071.4 071.14 072.5 072.6 072.10 075.13 075.14 076.3 076.5 076.6 076.7 077.13 078.1 078.12 079.10 079.12 080.3 080.7 080.11 081.6 081.14 082.8 082.10 082.11 083.1 083.14 084.5 084.8 084.11 085.5 086.2 087.5 088.3 088.4 088.14 089.2 089.3 089.6 089.7 089.11 089.12 089.13 090.9 091.4 092.3 092.4 092.6 092.9 18 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Of bird and fish in nodules like a band All night I heard the tolling of a bell; The tolling came like measures for a spell. Then all the seas united with a roar There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied A city of a vast antiquity. I saw rise up a substance soft and white Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, And life less like a tomb. And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! A thousand and a thousand years have fled; She had a lover for her wondrous grace; Such a treasure? I’d be missing A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; With a sweet rapture of shame. A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: Life is a dream between two deaths; a blind A million million men have lived and passed, A million million men will live and pass, And from a dusky corner came the stare Of some white form that made a rattling sound; And yet I could not move. There came a creak, And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: There was a sound, gigantically loud, There was a crackle as of blazing wood, And all the air was misty as a cloud. The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse O Love, a flower closes A music in the air, Wherein a cloudlike throng A glow that develops and flows from the inner being 092.10 093.5 093.8 094.1 094.8 094.9 095.5 095.6 095.13 096.13 096.16 096.30 096.92 096.95 096.101 098.1 099.7 099.13 100.4 101.13 101.14 101.17 101.20 101.22 102.1 102.12 102.14 104.5 104.6 104.10 104.11 104.12 104.13 105.2 105.4 105.9 105.14 106.1 106.2 106.3 106.4 106.5 106.7 106.8 107.5 109.1 109.22 109.35 110.3 A Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. A princess are, with beauty lovelier When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew A music-maker, lord of sorcery. Though every hour were rich with a great store For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; A counterpart of what is still to be? That you make these to that a sacrifice, And all your days, and mine, a vain device. And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine Remember phrases with a vague surprise For you have taught a thousand things to me, I am a fool, for only fools would trust And only echo answer a low call. And a bitter full heart, Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; A ruby flares in the glistening sky, In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, Before the palace a beacon flares, Out of the sky, a black star shines, From the palace, a marble monster whines, On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines A slain man moans on a pointed stake By a cypress-veiled lagoon. Footprints of a man-bat woven Feet are ended in a fen— She rules a realm decayed from elder days, A star She liked the texture of a lily, Her own reflections in a mirror. She loved to play a dangerous game A paragon, except in virtue, A beauty, save in soul and body, Her laugh was like a silver bell. A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; Their elders have promised them a day of returning, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. 19 110.10 110.15 111.1 111.3 111.4 111.7 111.12 113.2 113.4 113.12 115.5 116.5 116.8 118.1 118.10 118.13 118.14 119.10 120.3 120.10 121.1 122.12 123.13 124.13 125.5 125.9 125.14 125.17 125.18 125.19 125.23 126.2 126.13 126.15 127.17 127.19 128.1 128.12 128.13 128.25 128.26 128.33 129.13 129.14 129.15 130.5 130.7 130.19 131.12 20 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Like a steak half roasted there. And a smell of dandelions was Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I, He surely was a classic beauty.” Oh what a classicist am I. Expound a learned fourth dimension Still live a hundred years ago, Each pedagogue, a happy oyster, And every prof, a second Firkins, A model professorial wonder, For who could ever be a prof. Why, there each young M.A. would go to, “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” “A great deal matters. Who are you?” Archibald Mimmih ran a neat The elder gods have promised a day of returning When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Till a quarter of twelve, It’s a quarter of twelve, There was a young woman I know There was a young man—such a pity!— Who burped a remarkable ditty, Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force Abide And in her movements, languid charms abide. That all would pass, that nothing would abide. Able Can’t you see that I’d be able Abode I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; Abomination Abomination beautiful, About About the eaves, About me, who am dead. As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... “What are you talking about?” Above Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; The scented hair above thy brow, Where the lilies bloom above; Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, The face a group of eyes above a blur Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above Who liked it above or below, Abroad Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Absolute In darkness absolute, and listening hard, 135.12 136.8 136.11 137.1 137.19 137.28 137.29 138.13 138.17 138.24 138.29 138.31 138.33 138.36 139.1 139.3 139.8 140.1 141.5 141.7 141.19 143.2 143.10 144.1 145.1 145.2 145.4 147.11 053.5 107.11 135.8 124.5 030.27 002.13 054.15 072.13 104.13 139.6 003.14 004.19 004.26 015.15 066.9 089.12 096.47 144.2 066.15 074.2 A In silence absolute the lifeless land Absorb The very mice absorb their wisdom, Abysmal Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? Abyssal Abyssal pilgrimage undaunted, strong Abysses We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, Accompany Old prophecies alone accompany her. Ache Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache I do not know. There is an ache that fills Acherontic Of Acherontic streams; Of Acherontic streams; Aches To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. Achieved Desired of many but achieved by few. Aching In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Acid They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; Acids Till acids of experience undeceive The acids would not matter, nor I rue Across His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky Tremors across his white flesh pass. There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Across a purple ground to purple cliffs Across a velvet sky. And when I came. I looked across the great plain warily. Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, What followed me across the lifeless plain? Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; Added They added madness to my frantic cries Though all my days were added one by one, Adding Like cardinal numbers adding without end; Admiring Make you fair for admiring. Adoration Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration To this he gives his only adoration, Adore Unto the end I worship and adore; Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, I adore you, Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. Adoring She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases O Love, my heart adoring Adventure 21 093.1 138.21 013.22 017.12 024.7 003.15 034.15 079.9 053.15 019.3 027.9 012.4 067.4 020.4 068.12 003.17 084.2 121.8 121.13 014.17 018.8 044.2 071.2 071.4 082.5 089.5 091.1 094.3 105.2 084.3 115.1 115.2 096.36 066.5 068.13 007.58 043.9 052.3 097.4 041.7 109.37 22 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Aeons In aeons closes Aflame With monstrous fires aflame. With monstrous fires aflame. A-Flinging And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging Afraid Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, After After a while shalt go. And after this, there came to me one green There will be none after. For there will come none after, After you. Now was I destined after all to die, And after this, there came to me one green Afterglow Evening to night, and night to afterglow, After-Hell Fore-glimpse of after-hell. After-Nightfall Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, Afternoon And melancholy, dream away the afternoon Again Never again will a dead girl thrill But no voice shall speak again When the night came down again. Of golden voices that again will speak; Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— You’ve come again. You keep me company here, Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; Neither thing will walk again. The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom If I never take you anywhere again; Against He barricades himself against the world: Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall Of wave that smote against colossal wave. Age see also Dawn-Age Beyond the age of any sun; Of every age and every sky. And traveled backward past the age of man Age-Old Age-old dreams. Ages I peered far down the final future ages, We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, Agleam Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, Aglow By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, Ago Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: The tale is told of years of long ago. A thousand and a thousand years ago, What did it matter a thousand years ago 059.11 133.60 012.25 067.25 097.7 083.3 004.42 029.1 052.2 052.8 052.9 085.1 090.1 147.13 045.8 096.89 096.56 004.66 047.33 048.8 067.34 067.54 077.2 094.11 126.16 134.23 135.3 069.2 088.9 094.10 030.50 030.56 036.18 015.32 036.33 112.5 006.22 036.50 006.16 007.48 012.40 026.1 A A thousand million years ago, So long ago. Since ten thousand years ago. A thousand and a thousand years ago, The substance of it in the long ago. The maid I love was buried long ago; Still live a hundred years ago, Agony As I remember, in my agony Beyond the rack’s red searing agony Agree Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Agricola Agricola, agricolae. Agricola, agricolae. Agricola, agricolae. Agricolae Agricola, agricolae. Agricolae, Agricolarum, Agricola, agricolae. Agricola, agricolae. Agricolarum Agricolae, Agricolarum, Ah DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not Aimless You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Air see also Mid-Air The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, Tremble upon the scented air of night, We shivered in the quiet air, A heady fragrance filled the air And Psyche hover on the summer air. Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, A gray dusk mists the air Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; And through the riven air, there harshly swept And all the air was misty as a cloud. The air from some vast stellar carnage bled A music in the air, Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace Air and water creatures fight, 23 030.38 039.24 047.10 067.40 075.8 099.1 138.17 080.9 084.9 096.64 137.2 137.20 137.30 137.2 137.11 137.20 137.30 137.11 012.44 025.1 025.13 067.44 051.33 076.10 096.73 015.2 015.10 035.5 049.9 051.37 051.40 053.6 079.2 080.2 096.25 096.86 101.2 101.7 104.4 105.1 105.10 106.8 106.12 109.22 114.7 126.10 24 Airy Aisles Akbar Alas Alfred’s Alice Alien Alike Alive All A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Strange songs filled the air Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile But alas! Your name is Myrtle, Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice His cosmic challenge in an alien world. In those mysterious lands and alien places In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. Malefic, purposive, with alien force And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. A sentient entity from hell, alive. To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, All the night. And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Shall lose all Beauty in the end, All to death must go. Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; That love and passion weary all too soon. But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, All night I bowed before a burning shrine; And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, All night in worship and in love I lay; All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, 136.5 051.54 081.12 096.82 135.10 138.11 129.5 024.14 036.45 059.12 077.12 088.5 096.4 128.28 088.14 089.9 003.7 003.11 003.13 003.20 003.26 003.29 004.11 004.20 006.17 007.1 007.2 007.3 007.5 007.6 007.7 007.8 007.9 007.14 007.16 007.17 007.18 007.19 007.22 007.23 007.26 007.33 007.38 007.39 007.41 007.43 007.45 A All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, And bitter all the poison that it brings; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Pass, with all joy that passes, But all is mute forevermore. For all is dead, and all is still, That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, Of all my spectral lands, More fabulous than all the gems of fame, All things that thou dost love, All things that thou wouldst know. In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; And yet, in all my travels I could only find My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: Nothing in all the universe is left for me, All night long. You only live when all worth living’s lost. He burst asunder all the whelming bars From all the hate of all those bitter scars. And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; That blasted all the worlds that were. How all my days are as an aria played How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, And all the glory faded from the skies. Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, I searched the years that hold all things immortal I will not find it till all things shall cease, And still for this one dream all else forsaking I know this all I ever will be knowing: Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, When all the olden days are over, I have riven all darkness to find thee. I have burned all my flame at the altar, With its drapery hiding all wholly, All things died in my black might, 25 007.51 007.56 007.59 007.62 007.63 008.8 009.13 010.4 010.13 010.16 011.7 011.10 011.16 012.19 012.23 012.41 012.42 012.52 013.5 013.6 013.13 013.15 013.19 013.21 013.26 015.16 017.20 024.5 024.8 026.3 029.2 029.6 030.8 031.1 031.5 034.10 034.17 036.7 036.14 036.17 036.58 036.59 036.63 037.2 039.1 043.5 043.17 043.35 046.7 26 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei All colours else were wan and tame, All his great love will end in me, Awaited us, sea-weary all, It knew me not from all the rest, And over all a choral singing. With olden dead endeavor all erased, For all things die, but they die most regretful That flowered not, and all things weep to die, And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, All else is still the realm around, All the rottenness, I dread; All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; All the slime and mould that slowly spread In all the years by time begun, Not a creature lived in all the land, All it would find was a plump drowned rat All her dreaming, raptured face is white, And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, Murmur of all things that wane, Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration Of all my timeless lands, More fabulous than all the gems of fame. I offer all All things that you might love, All things that you would know. Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, All past and future. Traveler, stay! He scans the regions lying all around, Where all things are, yet are not; time and space Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. My old companions waited all around: As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, But all at once the shell of that cocoon That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing All substances and creatures from the bond At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. And all the little jeweled blades of grass Now was I destined after all to die, In all this hideous land the only soul. And I, and all that phantom city, died. And all around their other victims wait, I found no door, and when all hope lay dead With all the dreadful cerements of the grave And I in all that solitude lie slain. But all the strange and withered things still hung 046.23 046.43 049.6 049.20 049.27 051.6 051.15 051.16 051.39 051.54 053.17 054.12 054.13 054.14 055.6 057.6 057.15 058.3 059.8 059.13 059.16 061.5 063.10 066.5 067.19 067.23 067.38 067.41 067.42 067.49 067.50 069.5 070.11 071.11 072.2 073.10 075.9 076.8 076.9 079.10 082.3 085.1 085.6 086.14 087.2 088.7 090.2 091.8 093.11 A All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom Then all the seas united with a roar And all strange things once covered by the sea Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, Weary of all desires grown monotonous, Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, And all love’s joys that were. Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, With all things disagree, Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, All pleasure and all pain, All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; All lacking, and all gain. And leave behind me all the weary works of man, Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; All things are symbols of eternal death— All nature whispers but her one word: Death. The sum of all man knows, the sum of all Of all the stars and all the universe, And all that ever will be known, is Death. And all around, the weary corpses lie; And awful things were lying all around— And all the air was misty as a cloud. Upon all things of life and time and space; In all infinity was left no place Where Death in death all things did not immerse. That all would pass, that nothing would abide. All things their form reveal, With wonder past all knowing, Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? Though all my days were added one by one, I love you for the beauty all can see, Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways You care for that warm house of all your own, To all the world; and dearer still are those And all your days, and mine, a vain device. All night the blood-red ruby glares, And paid for all, on some occasions. She hated all lies, save her own, In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. 27 094.1 094.2 094.9 095.3 096.1 096.7 096.52 096.53 096.54 096.55 096.63 096.64 096.67 096.68 096.69 096.70 096.71 096.72 096.98 097.1 101.3 101.16 101.17 102.5 102.9 102.16 102.19 102.20 103.2 104.2 106.8 107.2 107.7 107.8 107.11 109.18 109.25 110.2 110.12 115.1 116.13 117.1 117.2 117.5 118.14 125.13 128.20 128.29 131.12 28 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei All the least lines that spelled I am doom that all dooms follow, I am all cups that fill, I am all deaths that chill, I am all life that springs anew, The true believer makes his own faith all along And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, Over all the tall wet grass. I know all Latin stems and nouns, The names of all the Roman towns; And perfect students, all in rhythm, Which is better than all, Restoring all things lost and small things broken. Allah And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, Allah’s The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Allahu Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile Allay He seeks to allay the old desire, All-Consuming You flare up in the all-consuming flame, Alloy Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. All’s The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow All-Seeing I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, Almost That almost hissed or the shimmering mist Alone To any save themselves alone, Ennui alone. Alone and far, And wander in far lands and seas, alone, Winging your vast way lonely and alone Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Clad him alone; When Atlantis stood alone Of the dual flower that alone endures; Old prophecies alone accompany her. And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. And it ruled alone. Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, Will wait, alone. In my domain alone you’ll capture Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, Alone protruded from the desert sand, I heard alone the surging tides in motion. Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. She loved alone and loved she most And listen always as I journey on alone. Alone know why, 132.5 133.22 133.28 133.30 133.31 134.20 134.22 136.12 137.3 137.4 138.27 143.6 147.12 096.79 096.80 096.100 096.94 096.82 018.10 017.5 028.8 096.101 133.53 048.15 010.23 013.4 014.10 025.3 037.3 043.28 046.28 047.13 051.30 053.15 053.18 057.5 059.15 065.24 067.48 076.2 093.4 094.14 097.4 128.11 131.16 143.8 A Along You drift along the desert’s burning sands; Along starroads with only moonglow paven The sun lay warm along our way, The sun lay warm along our way. As we, triumphant, strode along, Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound And widening inch by inch along the floor And burning eyes along each limb. It spun Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; The true believer makes his own faith all along The coeds only get along Aloud And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, Already I take the bridgeway you already know. Also They left me also rotten corpses there They also ought to know their Caesar, Altar But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, Where night was like a shroud before an altar I have burned all my flame at the altar, Although Had I, although I knew on what it fed, Although my flesh with many knives is slit. Always Contains what a flagon always should! Not always empty is a shell, Nor always full the charming sleeve— What form you have, for always you appear That she had always invitations, And listen always as I journey on alone. They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, There always was farther to go. Am I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; And I am sick to death with utter weariness I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, I am the colour deep blood-red, I am the colour yet to be; I am the sweet close winding-sheet That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, Therefor am I, with what I have, content, And I am dead. 29 017.6 037.6 049.8 049.14 049.19 072.7 078.3 091.12 093.9 105.3 131.2 134.20 138.6 007.49 147.14 103.11 137.23 007.17 036.13 043.17 075.7 103.4 022.6 042.16 042.17 077.7 128.18 131.16 138.5 144.5 003.1 003.3 004.76 013.25 013.27 013.29 031.8 043.2 043.26 046.18 046.42 046.45 050.5 050.13 054.1 30 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And I am dead. For I am dead. About me, who am dead. I am the sleeper Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken I am not sorry to have been your lover, I am a fool, for only fools would trust Why am I sad? Thus am I sad. Why am I weary? Thus am I weary. Why am I old? Thus am I old. I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them when I am not even questing I am man. I am the master of each living thing, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, I am wisdom of my own self blind, I am man, I am builder, I am maker, I am my own final taker, I am man. I am slayer, I am slain, I am fire, I am sod, I am the empty brain I am sunlight on the hill, I am mist in midnight hollow, I am doom that all dooms follow, I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, I am dust in cosmic outways resting, I am mote I am man. I am all cups that fill, I am the fleeting dew, I am all deaths that chill, I am all life that springs anew, I am man. 054.3 054.7 054.15 064.2 096.1 096.4 096.55 101.3 101.8 101.27 101.28 110.5 110.6 110.7 120.9 121.1 123.1 123.5 123.6 123.10 123.11 123.15 131.1 131.11 133.1 133.2 133.3 133.4 133.5 133.6 133.8 133.11 133.12 133.13 133.14 133.15 133.18 133.20 133.21 133.22 133.23 133.24 133.25 133.27 133.28 133.29 133.30 133.31 133.32 A I am sower, I am reaper, I am wastrel, never keeper, I am seeker, I am man. I am instant lost in time, I am atom lost in space, I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, I am the cinder wiped away, I am night erasing day, I am nothing as I die, I am man. I am telling you goodbye, dear, Oh what a classicist am I, And in my greatest bliss I am Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I. I am as mad as mad can be, For I am as mad as mad can be. Amber The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, Amethyst And drunk a wine of amethyst The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, Amid Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. I peered amid those waters black and still. Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten Amid a realm of sorcery, To fall amid colossal precipices. Amidst Amidst great cobwebs hanging everywhere Among Among the greater infinite he quests, Amorous As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover An We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, But only an ancient, buried passion sings. In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong His cosmic challenge in an alien world. Monotony of life an empty show? I do not know. There is an ache that fills An unknown golden tongue where every word How all my days are as an aria played Where night was like a shroud before an altar Upon an endless path forever going 31 133.33 133.34 133.35 133.50 133.51 133.52 133.53 133.54 133.55 133.56 133.57 135.1 137.1 137.9 137.19 137.29 142.1 142.10 096.38 127.7 030.19 044.6 006.24 011.21 015.18 036.7 055.3 079.14 072.1 014.5 003.33 007.26 015.28 096.11 101.18 003.27 004.76 007.15 007.64 024.3 024.14 026.4 027.9 028.2 031.1 036.13 036.61 32 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Has love become an aquarelle? I can not close an eye, Stares with an eye she can not shun. An unseen step on the creeping moss— They found him deep within an ancient cave An eagerness; and pain upon his features Or rests where an ocean current laves To capture an errant eel Like the ghost of an echoing note The world is an opium-dream; Who follows an endless stream And slowly paces to an inner hall, Discovering there an equal leaden hue, Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source Where sat an even greater, stranger being, As if there never were an end in store. Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover An emptiness not knowing you are there. An empress regnant in an empty tomb— The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, Ancient But only an ancient, buried passion sings. Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen That still preserve dark ancient stains Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong My mind with longings for some ancient thing, They found him deep within an ancient cave The sound of ancient lutes As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed The ruined relics of the ancient past, And there were living, ancient mummies bound Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. And Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Desolate, lonely, and far, Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, And summer is fled, And the days are dead, And the trees are bare And the skies are lead, And the wind is blowing cold. And the days are dark, And the north-wind—hark! 042.13 054.4 055.4 056.3 059.1 059.6 060.10 060.15 063.3 064.1 064.3 069.10 069.11 072.10 074.13 076.4 078.7 096.5 101.18 118.8 127.18 130.2 141.2 141.18 007.64 008.9 010.3 015.27 024.3 027.10 059.1 067.35 072.13 099.3 102.6 104.7 134.4 141.12 001.1 001.7 001.9 001.11 002.2 002.4 002.5 002.6 002.7 002.9 002.11 A How it howls and whoops And its faintest breath And it cries And the long nights near And summer is fled, And the days are dead, And the wind is blowing cold. With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her redlips be ashen, And her flesh, glad. And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble Evil and good. Even as Song and Life and Love, To dust and ash will turn. To Death and Time. And thou shalt go; For ever and ever and desolate, Beauty and Love and Life must die, Youth and Song and Joy; But a moment will come and death destroy And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, Every youth and maiden must And even so, Myrrhiline, Let us forget vain sorrow and tears Lily and poppy and rose are gone, And the song of Beauty for ever dying And while the fleeting hours away; And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips And I shall play And never will the present cease, 33 002.12 002.17 002.20 002.26 002.32 002.34 002.35 003.2 003.3 003.5 003.6 003.9 003.11 003.13 003.15 003.18 003.19 003.23 003.24 003.26 003.27 003.30 003.31 003.32 004.2 004.9 004.13 004.15 004.23 004.29 004.30 004.33 004.43 004.45 004.47 004.53 004.57 004.61 004.72 004.73 004.75 004.78 34 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And never shall I find release, When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, Poisonous and beautiful and dead; Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Heavy-lidded, somber-eyed, sacrosanct and sinful Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, That love and passion weary all too soon. And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved Love’s beauty and love’s torment and love’s fever-kisses, And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. And I was more insatiate with satiation, And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, And holy sin and sanctity were wed. And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night in worship and in love I lay; But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, And weariness of life oppresses me; For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. Unto the end I worship and adore; I worship thee and ever worship more. But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, And bitter all the poison that it brings; Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, And the tired day; 004.79 005.5 006.2 006.5 006.9 006.17 006.18 006.23 007.5 007.6 007.7 007.8 007.9 007.11 007.12 007.13 007.16 007.19 007.21 007.23 007.24 007.25 007.27 007.28 007.30 007.31 007.33 007.34 007.35 007.36 007.37 007.38 007.41 007.42 007.43 007.44 007.45 007.49 007.53 007.54 007.56 007.58 007.60 007.61 007.62 008.2 008.6 008.13 009.6 A As the mist and the rain; Their flame and their tears; They dwell in wasteland and in night. And never footsteps tread the ground. For all is dead, and all is still, And underneath the shroud of gloom And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. And hanging creepers that reluctantly Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. Within the pool so fathomless and dark. I peered amid those waters black and still. And by the dark caress was claimed forever, And in the waters saw my own face drown, Are black and gold and red, And in their solemn state, My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, Strange wondrous jewels and diadems And garlands overflung And silver flutes A thousand and a thousand years ago, Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, And now at last I crown me with a coronal My destiny, and found what men can never guess; And yet, in all my travels I could only find I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; Of star and sun. All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry And I am sick to death with utter weariness And old ennui. For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Alone and far, His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky To read the tale of star and sun, And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. Who asked and answered in a breath The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; 35 009.16 009.22 010.5 010.12 010.13 010.14 011.3 011.6 011.9 011.11 011.16 011.17 011.20 011.21 011.23 011.24 012.13 012.14 012.15 012.24 012.29 012.36 012.40 012.51 013.7 013.10 013.15 013.17 013.20 013.21 013.23 013.27 013.28 013.31 014.2 014.6 014.10 014.17 014.18 014.30 014.34 014.35 015.1 015.4 015.5 015.7 015.13 015.18 015.22 36 ` A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Love and wine. 015.24 With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: 015.28 And still to flushed and heated faces burning, 015.29 For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? 015.34 His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; 015.38 And body to body, drunken forms were swaying 015.39 Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, 016.1 And find that what I thought so great is but 016.3 Of desolation and the livid dead, 017.3 Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? 017.4 Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, 017.17 Foul messenger of war and holocaust, 017.18 Hermaphroditus, loved and lover, 018.1 But only and ever his flesh is burning, 018.11 With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, 019.1 The rose and the violet bind her hair; 019.6 And her body is bare. 019.8 And arms as sinuous as snakes, 020.2 And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses 020.3 Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 The white-caps and the foam their coronal. 020.8 There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying 020.9 And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing 020.11 Pain, and a choral delight; 021.4 Love, and Death are born. 021.8 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.4 The table is spread and the flagon red 022.5 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.8 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.12 023.2 Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! Lust, and the red, red wine! 023.4 The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! 023.6 Lust, and the red, red wine! 023.8 Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long 024.6 And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled 024.13 And wander in far lands and seas, alone, 025.3 Then, on this paper now so blank and white, 025.5 And fearful regions of a nameless fright, 025.8 With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace 025.9 Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, 025.10 Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. 025.12 Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, 025.13 And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb 026.3 That once a poet lived and loved and died, 026.6 And by a hideous world was crucified 026.7 To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, 026.10 Of buried kings, and empires perilous; 026.11 In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. 026.14 And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? 027.4 A Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? And every sound a thing of lyric joy. And I, who long for fairer melodies And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, And after this, there came to me one green With flapping tatters and long talons lean. And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; And of that thing there came to me a fear And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, And saw the space-invading star And watched a queen of Saturn mourn And thou hast known the azure mist And drunk a wine of amethyst On curious corpses, gold and green. Of sights and sounds of outer space, And find its cosmic burial And once thy purple eyes went blind And when they oped they could not find Their purple vision fade and die, Of every age and every sky. By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing And how my love that burns herein so deep And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. Through its valleys and its mountains And the lotus of their leaven, And the suns eternal, And the old stars are sunken And the ways that I cherished. And forget worlds olden? And the heart holds its ravage, And the mind’s decision, And surge of falling flame of far dominions, And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, And all the glory faded from the skies. Her world and sky. And left her lovely body to oblivion; We only left her body lying still and deep; Her birth and sleep. And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten 37 027.6 027.7 028.4 028.9 028.13 029.1 029.4 029.5 029.6 029.9 029.11 029.13 030.7 030.11 030.17 030.19 030.24 030.26 030.39 030.41 030.43 030.54 030.56 031.2 031.8 031.9 031.11 031.14 033.1 033.6 033.14 033.23 033.24 033.30 033.34 033.35 034.8 034.9 034.11 034.14 034.16 034.16 034.17 035.4 035.6 035.10 035.12 036.6 036.7 38 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, And knowing that my quest at last must falter And end, there too I sought. And traveled backward past the age of man In continents and islands that are sunken, Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. And farther still when life was yet to come, The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, I watched the universe grow cold and chill; In those mysterious lands and alien places I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; And when in closer human haunts I tired, And still for this one dream all else forsaking Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Winging your vast way lonely and alone Eternity between you and your haven; And longer ways before you yet to wander Through them and over them—what shall be found Pebbles and beetles and layers of earth, And incubi avidly waiting to take And twist their sinuous downward course— And a pebble necklace around his head And looted fields; Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage Of naked hearts, and dust And unforgotten nights And we will part, as once we parted For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Her garments only know what curves and hollows And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? And its death is the death of the world. Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? 036.10 036.15 036.16 036.18 036.21 036.22 036.25 036.26 036.28 036.34 036.45 036.54 036.55 036.59 036.62 037.2 037.3 037.8 037.9 038.3 038.6 038.7 038.10 038.15 039.9 039.13 039.14 039.17 039.22 040.5 040.7 041.11 042.8 043.1 043.2 043.3 043.13 043.15 043.16 043.20 043.24 043.25 A Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Wine of life and of death I have drunken, Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? And conceals like a curtain the shrine, And the form that it covers is thine. And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. Strange was the night, and stranger While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary And mistily shone the ghostly And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly For sick flames and the crawling dust, He had dreams and thoughts of just Hatred and spleen. My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, All colours else were wan and tame, Made mad songs and patterns of, We were won and lost of a mad young boy. And then passed by. Fishes swim and monsters creep Sea-tides ebb and flow; And its glory far was known, Shadowy growths and shadowy skies For a long and mystic sleep Only growths and fishes dwell We turned and set forth once more, But we turned too late and we knew our fate For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead And the living walked less like men Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept And stifling tropic heat; Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled From heat and plague as they died, And one by one with the setting sun And celebrate our festival. Revel and welcome, games and play And cast them for our footfall where The face was lost and I had guessed Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song. And everywhere the women flinging 39 043.27 043.28 043.29 043.31 043.32 043.34 043.36 044.3 044.4 044.5 044.6 044.8 045.5 045.11 045.13 045.15 046.14 046.15 046.16 046.22 046.23 046.35 046.39 046.40 047.3 047.7 047.14 047.24 047.35 047.37 048.2 048.3 048.5 048.6 048.7 048.10 048.19 048.22 048.23 049.4 049.5 049.13 049.18 049.22 049.23 40 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The wreath, the garland, and the rose, And over all a choral singing. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song.... So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, And find defeat ere I have much begun; And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, And conquest everlastingly beyond, Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste And years of striving in one moment ended. And into more than light, to something wholly And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, That flowered not, and all things weep to die, And they who merely lived are first to sigh: And to no futile dream of death aspires, And of no emptiness is unforgetful. And no love lasts if love be only mind, Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, And Psyche hover on the summer air. And sprites invisible attend the meeting, And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, That doth the icon and the dream inherit, And deeper fires, burning, burning, burning, Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. And in her movements, languid charms abide. And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. She walks with dust and dreams. And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. And I am dead. And I am dead. All the slime and mould that slowly spread Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold That presses on my grave and me, rolled And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; And wriggle through my gray The harvest, and to revel deep At me and slyly chuckle while they keep 049.24 049.27 049.28 050.4 050.6 050.8 050.9 050.10 050.11 051.5 051.7 051.11 051.12 051.16 051.18 051.20 051.21 051.23 051.26 051.27 051.33 051.34 051.37 051.38 051.39 051.40 051.43 051.46 051.47 051.48 051.52 051.54 051.55 051.62 051.63 053.5 053.8 053.16 053.18 054.1 054.3 054.14 054.21 054.22 054.25 054.29 054.31 054.38 054.40 A And rotten in each swelling pore, And rotten to the very core, Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. Shadowy night and the world to cross— Is it the willows shiver and sigh? There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne And it ruled alone. And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head And the slimy things of the slimy dead Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, And dead men’s bones. As deathless and old as the deathless sea, And the worm is king for eternity, Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, An eagerness; and pain upon his features And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Her coral isles and shadowy pearls With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, Where breakers and lonely waters roar, And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, And cower behind the black tree boles With their faces dissolved and deathly heads Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes Desolate, lonely, and far Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Nightward and deeper. On the old and grass-covered mound Trees solemn and soundless and tall And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Are black and gold and red. And in their solemn state My thrones majestical, imperial, and great Strange wondrous jewels and diadems And magic garlands flung And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; And silver flutes 41 054.49 054.50 056.1 056.5 056.8 056.9 056.10 057.2 057.5 057.7 057.9 057.12 057.16 057.17 057.19 057.23 059.6 059.8 060.3 060.4 060.7 060.9 060.13 060.24 061.11 062.2 062.3 062.4 062.5 062.6 062.7 063.1 063.7 063.11 064.4 065.15 065.21 066.2 066.7 066.11 066.13 066.14 067.13 067.14 067.15 067.24 067.29 067.32 067.36 42 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A thousand and a thousand years ago, The face that haunts your heart and mind. All past and future. Traveler, stay! Death: We will. We will, and I know when. He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Till thus, from incantation and invoking, Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown Of inner ecstasy and exaltation Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. And slowly paces to an inner hall, He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. Where all things are, yet are not; time and space But phantoms; life and death part each of other; And back; and purple suns flamed northerly Across a velvet sky. And when I came. And when I crossed the imperial weaving span And so I soared on pinions of the night And when my steed permitted me to light, And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke I could not move though mind and spirit broke. It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, It fell in parts, and I was part of it. In darkness absolute, and listening hard, That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow And languid, warming into life; no dread Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, All substances and creatures from the bond And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour Oh little creature, lost in time and space, And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. And widening inch by inch along the floor Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Increasing, spreading more and ever more Before me, one closed portal, and the flow Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. And when the talons loosened, I could see That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. 067.40 067.47 067.50 067.55 068.6 068.8 068.10 068.11 069.6 069.7 069.10 069.14 070.11 070.12 071.3 071.4 071.5 071.9 071.12 071.14 072.3 072.12 072.14 073.2 073.4 073.14 074.2 074.6 074.11 074.13 075.1 075.5 075.6 076.2 076.9 076.12 077.1 077.4 077.8 077.11 077.12 078.3 078.5 078.6 078.10 078.14 079.11 080.6 081.4 A Of revelers turned statue, and no more Past them the leopards led me on and on And when I saw these titans, thereupon But when I passed and left them in their gloom, And all the little jeweled blades of grass And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. And so I slowly raise the shade to greet And stare and stare in horror as I meet The leering of a huge and sightless eye. And when at last my captors bore me through And I, and all that phantom city, died. And all around their other victims wait, Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. Around and see the comrades that are mine; They left me morsels, curious and queer, And in recurring deaths escape them never. I found no door, and when all hope lay dead Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry As of a lost and hungry child. Then die And stood tremendous to my caverned room, Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. And after this, there came to me one green With flapping tatters and long talons lean. And of its face no vestige could be seen, And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave And of that thing swept over me a fear So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, And every forward step a weary strain. And still it followed, still I heard it gain And I in all that solitude lie slain. And burning eyes along each limb. It spun Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Of creepers, and where head should be was growing Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung But all the strange and withered things still hung And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom The ocean beds were open now, and free, And all strange things once covered by the sea There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee And weird encrusted forms on every side. I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; And in the fading vision of my sleep 43 081.7 081.9 081.11 081.13 082.3 082.14 083.11 083.13 083.14 086.12 086.14 087.2 087.4 087.10 087.11 087.14 088.7 089.4 089.6 089.7 089.10 089.14 090.1 090.4 090.5 090.6 090.9 090.10 090.12 091.4 091.5 091.8 091.12 092.1 092.5 092.8 092.12 093.8 093.9 093.11 094.7 095.2 095.3 095.5 095.7 095.8 095.9 095.11 095.12 44 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I saw rise up a substance soft and white Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, And dreams that can not be. And indolently languish in her languorous And polished ebony, And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, I clap, and at the sign Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, And life less like a tomb. And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, And if you mesmerize And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of And your mouth poppy-lipped, And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier And all love’s joys that were. And melancholy, dream away the afternoon And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, And houris sad songs croon. Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease All pleasure and all pain, All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; All lacking, and all gain. Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, And the cicadas sing, And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, And fair seems everything. From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell And leave behind me all the weary works of man, And take the caravan To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow 095.13 096.1 096.2 096.4 096.5 096.6 096.10 096.15 096.16 096.21 096.22 096.23 096.28 096.29 096.30 096.32 096.39 096.41 096.43 096.45 096.46 096.50 096.54 096.56 096.59 096.60 096.62 096.65 096.69 096.70 096.71 096.72 096.74 096.76 096.77 096.79 096.85 096.86 096.87 096.88 096.90 096.91 096.92 096.94 096.95 096.98 096.99 096.100 096.101 A And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! A thousand and a thousand years have fled; Joys that pass and youth too fleet, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, The mountains and the rivers whisper: Death. A million million men have lived and passed, And found, the one reality is Death. A million million men will live and pass, And find, the one reality is Death. The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum Of all the stars and all the universe, And all that ever will be known, is Death. And all around, the weary corpses lie; And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! Around, and see the comrades that I had; And then they left me, lonely. lying where And awful things were lying all around— Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, And from a dusky corner came the stare And there were living, ancient mummies bound In gummy cloths of long and human hair. These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, And yet I could not move. There came a creak, And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? And through the riven air, there harshly swept And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; And all the air was misty as a cloud. And both my hands were covered with that red, And everything was red and strange and mad; And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Upon all things of life and time and space; Upon all things of life and time and space; 45 097.7 098.4 098.6 099.7 100.5 101.3 101.6 101.9 101.12 101.13 101.14 101.16 101.22 101.24 101.29 102.3 102.11 102.12 102.13 102.14 102.15 102.18 102.19 102.20 103.2 103.8 103.10 103.13 104.2 104.3 104.5 104.7 104.8 104.9 104.10 104.11 104.12 105.4 105.5 105.6 105.8 105.10 106.2 106.8 106.9 106.10 106.13 107.2 107.2 46 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And DOOM had fallen on the universe. Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, And wood-winds lightly grieve And footsteps seem to pass And flowers fair as moly And voices shake the night The worlds of sleep and waking, And dreams become the real. And fair things yet more fair, And beauty yet unknown, And light that never shone And every dream-form glowing The image and the fanes Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, A glow that develops and flows from the inner being And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken O Love, the world so shadowy and dim So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; We have been participant and passer-by. To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. For, and the loveliness you watch so well. With you. and you so beautiful and fair. Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours Differed so, each from each, and this one more Though this were Paradise, and Paradise Radiant and ever-freshening, ever new, 107.4 107.13 109.3 109.11 109.13 109.15 109.17 109.19 109.23 109.26 109.27 109.29 109.38 110.1 110.2 110.3 110.4 110.6 110.7 110.9 110.16 111.6 112.1 112.2 112.4 112.5 112.6 112.8 112.10 112.11 112.13 112.15 113.5 113.6 113.7 113.10 113.14 114.12 114.14 115.4 115.6 115.7 115.9 115.10 A And I would let it in complete eclipse The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, And more for beauty, only known to me. Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways To all the world; and dearer still are those Arrays and disarrays the house contains, The changing fancy and the careful rows Perfection gains by contrast and may be The artistry external, and I find And through its darkened window see no sky: And you will never know what years drift by. And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only And all your days, and mine, a vain device. And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; And truths I could not otherwise discover. And overlook the underlying thrust, Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet Assume new meaning and become the prick And naked lay the true design, the trick. The fall of footsteps light and pantherine Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; And of my presence, I could feel no sign That says, These things shall be, and they are so: And waited, wondered, though I did not know... And only echo answer a low call. And the days that are dead, And the fallen sweet clover, And a bitter full heart, Only you, and the past, my dearest And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. Long-dead creatures murmur and sigh Mandrakes writhe and witch-fires burn, Lethal waters sleep and swoon Flickering flames and fire-flies Lighting swamps and tarns unholy And the miles of rotten bogs. Air and water creatures fight, And rise Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. 47 115.13 116.6 116.14 117.1 117.5 117.6 117.7 117.11 117.13 118.2 118.4 118.5 118.6 118.7 118.14 119.10 119.14 120.2 120.7 120.12 121.3 121.9 121.9 121.10 121.12 122.1 122.2 122.3 122.6 122.8 122.12 123.3 123.9 123.13 123.19 124.3 124.4 124.9 124.11 124.14 125.7 125.10 126.1 126.3 126.5 126.8 126.10 127.4 127.5 48 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei So deeply dark and fair And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. And ope The sight of goblets cool and rounded, And scandal, better if unfounded. And for the rest, she owed, and owed. She loved alone and loved she most And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came And steadily grew strange and stranger. And paid for all, on some occasions. A beauty, save in soul and body, Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. She had no scruples and no morals And thus preserved her innocence. Lips parting and closing over the draught her And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Elizabeth Arden, Walska, and Rubenstein; She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. And ashes consume what the elders condemn. The little gods then will tremble and waken And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: When death has been captured and time overtaken, The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I hear them in the open and in hallways, And listen always as I journey on alone. And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, Of black and radiant night. The golden poppy folds and each eternal I And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, And night’s great arch illume. And I hope that you won’t cry dear, And it only rhymes with turtle...... Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, And a smell of dandelions was I know all Latin stems and nouns, And any Latin phrase can quote, 127.6 127.10 127.14 128.2 128.4 128.8 128.11 128.15 128.16 128.20 128.26 128.28 128.39 128.40 129.2 129.8 129.9 129.10 129.11 129.12 130.8 130.9 130.10 130.11 130.12 130.13 130.14 130.15 130.16 130.20 131.2 131.7 131.8 131.10 131.13 131.14 131.15 131.16 134.8 134.12 134.16 134.22 134.24 135.2 135.11 136.7 136.11 137.3 137.6 A Anew Angel 49 And to the students in my classes, 137.7 And in my greatest bliss I am 137.9 Comparisons and conjugations, 137.13 And philological relations, 137.14 And other such-like things as that is 137.15 For they are life and love to me, 137.17 Illussimae and classicorum 137.21 And when I die, must be enscrolled 137.25 “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; 137.27 And think the words they drop are jewels. 138.2 And win the prof’s eternal pity, 138.7 And wonder what we’re conning to. 138.18 And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” 138.22 And in this pedagogic cloister, 138.23 Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. 138.26 And perfect students, all in rhythm, 138.27 And every prof, a second Firkins, 138.29 And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, 138.39 And every error, he would single-ish! 138.40 “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” 139.7 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 Who came from near and came from far 140.7 And asked to go to Hades. 140.8 And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. 141.8 The monster gods then will tremble and waken 141.9 And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, 141.10 When death has been captured and time overtaken, 141.11 The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. 141.12 The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, 141.13 When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; 141.14 141.15 They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. 141.16 And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. 141.20 The cat on the fence, and world conditions, 142.4 Emily Post, and thieves in state; 142.5 Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, 142.8 Dig and delve 143.1 And you and I 143.7 So dig and delve, 143.9 And she didn’t mind, 144.4 And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! 145.5 Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, 146.1 And past the winding river’s end you gaze, 147.4 Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? 147.7 And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? 147.9 Restoring all things lost and small things broken. 147.12 Evening to night, and night to afterglow, 147.13 I am all life that springs anew, 133.31 Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. 037.14 50 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Anguish Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call Annoy That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy Another A lonely traveler on another star; Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, Answer The answer came, where I in torment lay, I answer—if they love me in my fashion, And only echo answer a low call. The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. Answered Who asked and answered in a breath Antiquity A city of a vast antiquity. Antistrophes Antistrophes that seven before him knew, Any Lovely as any girl the world has seen, To any save themselves alone, Beyond the age of any sun; Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder From any moon. Than any known in lands that never were, The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? And any Latin phrase can quote, Or any other words to jar ’em; Anything Not anywhere was life nor anything, Anytime Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; Anywhere Not anywhere was life nor anything, Not on earth nor anywhere If I never take you anywhere again; Aphrodite Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; Apocalypse The cold apocalypse of sand. Apocalyptic Apocalyptic prophet of our doom, The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, Apollo Of pagany, divinely young Apollo, Appalling Oh color hideous, appalling, mad, Appear What form you have, for always you appear Appearances Of daggers, fair appearances retreat 045.10 028.5 014.11 087.7 080.13 119.12 122.12 130.12 141.12 014.34 095.6 068.7 008.11 010.23 030.50 031.6 037.11 109.32 113.3 134.19 137.6 137.12 107.12 135.9 107.12 133.65 135.3 051.36 067.32 010.20 017.10 130.2 130.18 141.2 141.18 051.44 017.9 077.7 121.11 A Appeared What they appeared. But there are some so blind Aquarelle Has love become an aquarelle? Arabesques Of arabesques the blood-red sun, Arabesques on a tomb. Arch And night’s great arch illume. Archibald Archibald Mimmih ran a neat Arctic From the Arctic gloom. Arden Elizabeth Arden, Walska, and Rubenstein; Are Oh, the nights are long And the days are dead, And the trees are bare And the skies are lead, The days are short And the days are dark, The days are drear, Oh, the nights are long And the days are dead, The flowers of old are overblown, Lily and poppy and rose are gone, The lips of the singers of Greece are still, Maiden voices are mute; The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. For none are left the tale to tell. Are black and gold and red, At last are wise A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying Love, and Death are born. Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! The listening ear; its tones are softly heard Thine eyes, Valerian, are full Thy purple haunted eyes are mad They gazed on stars that now are dust, Valerian! Thine eyes are filled Valerian! Thine eyes are old For they are blinded with the glut 51 121.5 042.13 055.2 065.12 134.24 140.1 002.19 129.11 002.3 002.4 002.5 002.6 002.8 002.9 002.25 002.33 002.34 004.56 004.57 004.64 004.65 004.68 007.45 007.46 007.53 007.56 010.24 012.13 014.29 015.45 017.7 020.1 020.3 020.9 021.8 022.4 022.8 022.12 023.6 028.6 030.25 030.30 030.33 030.45 030.49 030.55 52 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei How all my days are as an aria played 031.1 Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, 031.6 Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing 031.9 On the meads that are rarest, 033.10 And the old stars are sunken 033.23 Where the asphodels are springing? 033.26 Whence the last birds are winging? 033.28 In continents and islands that are sunken, 036.21 Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, 037.13 Long are the roots that enter the soil 038.9 When all the olden days are over, 039.1 Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? 043.12 As the stars are, my love is eternal. 043.23 The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, 044.6 These, these are gone, nothing of them remains 051.8 But they whose life was barren are most fretful, 051.17 And they who merely lived are first to sigh: 051.18 Unless in deeper love both are combined; 051.25 There are no eyes to see, 053.11 My bones are hoar 054.55 Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? 056.2 And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. 056.8 Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, 058.7 They are curious things that hide in the woods 062.1 Are black and gold and red. 067.13 Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, 070.5 Where all things are, yet are not; time and space 070.11 What are the dim dread images that bind 083.5 Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. 087.4 Around and see the comrades that are mine; 087.10 Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, 096.5 And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, 096.59 I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite 096.67 Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know 099.5 Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, 101.16 Are merely words that mean no more than life. 102.4 All things are symbols of eternal death— 102.5 The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. 103.14 Blessed be the dead for they are dead. 108.1 Where none are seen: 109.12 I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. 110.6 To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? 110.12 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning 112.1 We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: 112.13 I know there are no princesses, but you 113.1 A princess are, with beauty lovelier 113.2 A Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, These are the things I love you for: the gray You are the fairest of the lovely whom Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways To all the world; and dearer still are those Your imperfections are as fair to me An emptiness not knowing you are there. Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. What they appeared. But there are some so blind What they are told, the falseness never find That says, These things shall be, and they are so: And the days that are dead, For the springs that are gone. For the times that are over, Feet are ended in a fen— Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, Though I know that you are pretty, That your words are clever, witty, For they are life and love to me, Are things that never ought to bore ’em. Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. And think the words they drop are jewels. Especially when their knees are pretty. “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” “What are you talking about?” “A great deal matters. Who are you?” “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” Aria How all my days are as an aria played Arm Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? Armageddon Symbol of Armageddon, rot of rust, Arms In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching But in thine arms, Myrrhiline, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And arms as sinuous as snakes, Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; May sing of her are vain; The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall Arose I must, for it arose, its mass dividing Around For many a thousand leagues around 53 113.6 114.1 116.1 117.1 117.5 117.9 118.8 118.11 119.14 121.5 121.7 122.6 123.3 123.4 123.7 126.15 127.2 127.13 135.4 135.5 137.17 137.22 137.24 138.2 138.8 139.1 139.3 139.6 139.8 139.12 031.1 074.13 083.6 017.19 003.17 004.80 007.1 007.37 007.51 007.63 020.2 038.14 041.14 091.11 092.7 089.8 010.9 54 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, I watched on earth the littler things around; Deep stems twining around the mandrake, And a pebble necklace around his head Tides around Atlantis sweep, All else is still the realm around, In dissolution’s rot. Around, He scans the regions lying all around, Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. My old companions waited all around: Yet twined around me with inhuman force. Around me, solid walls of no escape, And all around their other victims wait, Around and see the comrades that are mine; And all around, the weary corpses lie; Around, and see the comrades that I had; And awful things were lying all around— Array She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, Of lips too tender; your precise array. Arrays Its superficial vesture whose arrays Arrays and disarrays the house contains, Arrow I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, Arrowed Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Art Thou art beautiful, Myrrhiline, Thou art loveliest of the things I know; When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen With supernatal art. Art thou only a phantom before me, Artifice That’s natural artifice in you; the way Artistry The artistry external, and I find As As it stirs the dust With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Even as Song and Life and Love, Even as one who loves thee, Love, Even as I. Even as I, Oh Myrrhiline, As the forgotten girls who placed them there. As one who of strange pleasure sips, As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen 011.10 036.44 038.5 038.15 047.32 053.17 054.20 069.5 071.11 072.2 074.14 078.9 087.2 087.10 103.2 103.10 104.2 003.9 114.8 117.3 117.6 133.4 059.10 004.39 004.40 005.1 005.5 007.53 008.9 032.8 043.11 114.4 117.13 002.23 003.2 003.33 003.34 003.37 003.38 004.2 004.3 004.4 004.10 004.60 004.74 008.4 008.6 008.9 A Lovely as any girl the world has seen, As the mist and the rain; Drowning as willow-fingers drowned, deep—deep— As thou hast never known; All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture And arms as sinuous as snakes, Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb Will be as perished poppies overblown And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? As if a wind had musically stirred For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, Whose perfect euphony would be as clear And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, How all my days are as an aria played Or as the futile, giant music made Shall even as my lost days be foredone, Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, Is such as gods impart As if a wizard’s wand That once ran red as blood And we will part, as once we parted Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? For a love that was fleeting as day? As the stars are, my love is eternal. And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. A sibilance that followed as I stole From heat and plague as they died, As we strode the streets of Tyre As we strode down the streets of Tyre. As we, triumphant, strode along, Wherefor, solution distant as a star, Spontaneous as yours, A noisome pool as once before. As deathless and old as the deathless sea, As deathless as ever a worm can be, On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes As a cindering star, Is the dream as it dies. As the wind she will pass. She will dream as the night wanes slowly, As you have never known, From towers topless as the realms of sleep It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, 55 008.11 009.16 011.25 012.2 013.5 015.7 015.11 020.2 024.12 026.3 026.13 027.7 028.7 028.11 028.12 028.13 031.1 031.3 031.12 031.13 032.7 034.3 039.11 039.22 043.4 043.8 043.23 044.8 045.18 048.22 049.1 049.7 049.19 050.7 052.6 054.54 057.17 057.18 058.9 063.1 063.8 063.14 065.4 065.19 067.2 069.3 070.1 070.2 56 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei As fearful as the haunts of the insane. As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, As I went onward toward those upper lairs. Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, As if there never were an end in store. As I remember, there were clanging gongs As I remember, there were flaming tongs As I remember, in my agony The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. And stare and stare in horror as I meet As of a lost and hungry child. Then die I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... There was a crackle as of blazing wood, And all the air was misty as a cloud. And flowers fair as moly For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. Your imperfections are as fair to me As your more supernatal beauty, since And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, I merely listened, as I listen still, Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. Mysterious as her sunken palace is, So long as there was never danger; The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten And listen always as I journey on alone. As I note As from birth As I began, I am nothing as I die, As the unknown force disposes I’m quite as good as ears to asses; And other such-like things as that is Would be as old as papa Perkins, I am as mad as mad can be, For I am as mad as mad can be. As you begin your final travel, know Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force Ascends The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, Ash To dust and ash will turn. For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. Ashen Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips 070.3 072.13 073.9 073.10 074.4 075.10 078.7 080.1 080.5 080.9 081.14 083.13 089.7 091.9 096.68 096.76 102.3 104.13 106.7 106.8 109.13 116.5 116.8 117.9 117.10 119.10 122.5 122.7 127.5 127.12 128.14 129.14 131.16 133.26 133.40 133.46 133.56 133.61 137.8 137.15 138.30 142.1 142.10 146.2 147.11 066.10 004.9 007.56 A Ashes Aside Ask Asked Asking Asleep Asphodel be ashen, It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. We will pour ashes from the phials And ashes consume what the elders condemn. And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. Who asked and answered in a breath And asked to go to Hades. “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” With the breath of the web-faced things asleep For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, Asphodels Where the asphodels are springing? Where asphodels do grow. Aspire I aspire Aspires And to no futile dream of death aspires, Assail But still assail the deeper firmament. Assailing To chart the labyrinths of long assailing; Assay Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay Asses I’m quite as good as ears to asses; Assuaged Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming Assume Assume new meaning and become the prick Assures A greater wealth your greater love assures Asunder He burst asunder all the whelming bars At Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Petals tremulous with dew at dawn When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, And now at last I crown me with a coronal At last are wise He stood at last before the citadel Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. Thine eyes were at the avatar I have drunk at the fountains We left her staring at the musty pall, And knowing that my quest at last must falter Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, I have burned all my flame at the altar, At me and slyly chuckle while they keep Till at last, in her caverned halls Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. Then at the top I stood on magic squares 57 003.23 027.13 051.24 007.12 039.10 130.8 141.8 078.5 124.9 124.14 014.34 140.8 139.3 125.3 051.34 033.26 041.4 133.16 051.20 050.14 031.10 051.59 137.8 015.27 121.10 051.32 024.5 003.14 003.21 004.58 005.1 007.17 013.7 014.29 024.10 029.8 030.5 033.3 035.3 036.15 043.9 043.17 054.40 060.21 073.11 074.5 58 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei But all at once the shell of that cocoon At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. And when at last my captors bore me through I clap, and at the sign How glad I was that I at last awoke! At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, For Death the Conqueror at last was king; I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, My life-illusion has at last been broken, I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; Here at the house you dwelled But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, While over us the wind at twilight soughs, Ate see also Half-Ate Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; Athwart Athwart the circling citadel of stars, Atlantis Lost Atlantis slumbers deep, When Atlantis stood alone On Atlantis dreaming, dreaming Mark where dead Atlantis lies Swimming through Atlantis doomed; Tides around Atlantis sweep, Lost Atlantis slumbers well Atom I am atom lost in space, Will atom keep Atop Atop a mountain measurelessly high Attains Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown Attempts Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; Attend And sprites invisible attend the meeting, Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay Atthla They saw the mighty Atthla fall Attic Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Attitudes To illustrate their attitudes, Aureoled Thy face is aureoled Authors’ The authors’ names I know by rote, Autumn Autumn is old Sleep, with autumn sleeping, Autumnal On the autumnal gust; Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze Avatars The secret of eternal avatars. Avidly And incubi avidly waiting to take The fleshly flowers whispered avidly: Await Await thy kingly head. 075.9 079.10 086.12 096.21 104.14 105.12 107.9 110.5 120.1 131.10 131.14 132.1 134.2 134.4 147.3 054.29 036.2 047.1 047.13 047.17 047.25 047.28 047.32 047.40 133.52 133.66 089.2 068.10 070.7 051.38 051.40 051.59 030.37 074.1 138.16 032.3 137.5 002.10 009.5 009.18 147.2 036.4 038.7 082.1 012.16 A Await your kingly head. Awaited Awaited us, sea-weary all, He wins the long awaited separation Awaiting Awaiting morn. For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover Awake In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. I hear them wide awake or part way resting, Awaken Now I fully awaken With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. Awakened I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, Awakening And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on Awaking I have not found it sleeping or awaking. Away And while the fleeting hours away; Its white life away; While empty cities rot away I have sundered the stars away; Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered No ears to hear her footsteps die away. Before I dropped away, for I was free— For silence unto silence died away. Caught me with safety but a league away. I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, And melancholy, dream away the afternoon Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting Till softly falls away Sleep the dim night away The years away intended, but for leaping Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders I am the cinder wiped away, Then away, away, Away, away. Awed I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken Awesome Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, Awful What evil source your awful scarlet flood? I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; And awful things were lying all around— The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. Awoke How glad I was that I at last awoke! Avatar Thine eyes were at the avatar Azure And thou hast known the azure mist 59 067.16 049.6 068.9 065.8 101.19 051.35 131.9 033.9 110.8 101.1 066.11 036.57 004.72 009.8 010.11 043.6 045.19 053.13 079.13 080.14 086.2 096.19 096.34 096.56 096.74 096.81 109.7 119.5 122.2 124.10 133.54 143.3 143.11 110.5 110.6 110.7 070.5 017.2 043.2 104.2 105.11 104.14 030.5 030.17 B Bacchanal Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling Bacchic With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! Back And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. Still farther back before the stars were spawning Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, You will come back to me, You will come back to me, lost lover, Come back with setting suns You will come back some day, lost lover, Come back, come back to me, And back; and purple suns flamed northerly And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! They dragged me back with never pause for rest. Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, They gave me back my eyes so I could peer I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Backward And traveled backward past the age of man Bait The chewed remains of something used for bait; Bale I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; Baleful And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Of burning, baleful scarlet spun And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Balustrades Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. Band Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Bane Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Banners Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Bare And the trees are bare And her body is bare. That streams from her glowing body bare Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Barred So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, Barren Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, 015.15 015.28 022.1 022.2 036.25 036.27 037.13 039.2 039.7 039.8 039.19 039.20 071.3 074.11 083.9 086.5 086.6 087.9 096.8 036.18 087.6 036.54 011.3 017.15 055.14 105.4 053.10 061.9 093.8 017.15 069.4 002.5 019.8 060.20 092.5 094.6 124.7 050.4 007.12 007.59 B But they whose life was barren are most fretful, Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Barricades He barricades himself against the world: Bars He burst asunder all the whelming bars Bathed Or be bathed in new glory, Bathes Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, Bathing By bathing me in streams of molten lead. Bat see Man-Bat Bat-Things The bat-things weave, Be see also Soon-to-be-Forgotten Till her body be mine. In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever There will be, Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Will be as perished poppies overblown Whose perfect euphony would be as clear Shall even as my lost days be foredone, Or be bathed in new glory, Delight be withholden? To be, I thought to find in nearer faces I know this all I ever will be knowing: Through them and over them—what shall be found Our thoughts will be more sad than death is Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, Should love be told in brede or breve? In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? I am the colour yet to be; Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, There could not be so still a sea No love endures if love be only passion And no love lasts if love be only mind, There will be none after. Her vigil never will be done: As deathless as ever a worm can be, But the musty tale can never be told Night be gone. 61 051.17 069.6 069.2 024.5 033.29 096.86 084.4 061.10 003.12 003.17 003.19 003.23 003.39 004.81 006.7 026.13 028.12 031.12 033.29 033.32 036.47 036.63 038.3 039.4 041.13 042.14 043.15 043.16 043.31 043.32 046.42 046.47 048.11 051.22 051.23 052.2 055.18 057.18 057.21 066.4 62 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The days for which the heart should be most grateful My own the lineaments that seemed to be Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: Whose source could only, be some fearful shape Though singly impotent, might be in mass I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever And of its face no vestige could be seen, Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Of creepers, and where head should be was growing And dreams that can not be. Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Take, or the taking never will be thine; Such a treasure? I’d be missing Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken Love comes. I know that I shall never be Oh love, it is enough that I may be Yet would it be no Eden to entice. Reveal the symmetry that should be shown Perfection gains by contrast and may be There will be none with you to help you share it, And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only A counterpart of what is still to be? Or think that those sweet words were meant to be That says, These things shall be, and they are so: No human being could be near her: Can’t you see that I’d be able And when I die, must be enscrolled They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, Would be as old as papa Perkins, For who could ever be a prof. “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” I am as mad as mad can be, For I am as mad as mad can be. Beacon Before the palace a beacon flares, Beak Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. Beams Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Bear Go! I can not bear thee, Go! I can not bear you. Go! Bearing Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Beast Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Of human form or beast, weird sorcery 070.4 073.6 073.12 078.11 082.7 087.13 090.5 091.7 092.8 096.6 097.1 097.3 097.6 100.4 108.1 108.2 108.3 110.7 113.9 114.13 115.11 117.4 117.11 118.3 118.5 118.6 118.7 118.10 121.4 122.6 128.10 135.8 137.25 138.5 138.30 138.33 139.15 142.1 142.10 125.14 075.13 075.14 017.15 012.10 067.10 059.2 124.8 059.10 093.7 B Beasts Beat see Half-Beasts That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. On which such sunfire beat. Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Beating With wings of beating purple flew to me Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: Then beating to the chambers of my brain Beautiful I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice Beautiful maidens have their bed Beautiful youths have long lain dead Thou art beautiful, Myrrhiline, Poisonous and beautiful and dead; Abomination beautiful, With you. and you so beautiful and fair. Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet Beauty Is the voice of Beauty that dies. With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; Shall lose all Beauty in the end, So shalt thou thy beauty lend Beauty and Love and Life must die, Even the least. Beauty must die. Never will Beauty escape the grave, And the song of Beauty for ever dying And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved Love’s beauty and love’s torment and love’s fever-kisses, The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, Die, with Beauty that dies The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, The beauty of thy features, And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, So fair she is that beauty hath no graces I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? 63 007.24 048.12 079.2 080.2 105.6 124.7 071.7 073.12 080.12 003.1 003.2 003.5 003.7 004.25 004.27 004.39 006.2 030.27 114.14 121.9 001.14 003.2 004.11 004.12 004.29 004.34 004.36 004.61 007.19 007.21 007.28 007.35 007.42 007.43 008.2 008.4 008.13 009.19 012.32 025.6 025.10 032.5 034.11 041.1 043.2 043.4 64 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, 043.26 There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, 044.1 Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly 051.9 Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, 051.13 Till beauty into perfect beauty swoons; 051.53 Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, 051.62 Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide 053.2 And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. 053.18 With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, 060.7 She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; 066.13 And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier 096.50 Springtide waning, Beauty sweet, 100.6 Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, 101.16 And beauty yet unknown, 109.26 Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, 110.2 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 A princess are, with beauty lovelier 113.2 The inner beauty I more deeply care 114.11 Beauty possesses, but would not care 116.2 For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom 116.5 Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. 116.8 I love you for the beauty all can see, 116.13 And more for beauty, only known to me. 116.14 As your more supernatal beauty, since 117.10 Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping 119.1 A beauty, save in soul and body, 128.26 The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light 134.11 He surely was a classic beauty.” 137.28 Beauty’s In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— 012.52 Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. 028.14 And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth 051.43 Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours 115.6 128.22 Because Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; Beckon There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying 020.9 Beckoning Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: 006.16 Become Until your birthsite was become effaced. 037.7 Has love become an aquarelle? 042.13 I found my leg become a hellish root, 082.11 And dreams become the real. 109.19 You will become? It seems so strange to me 118.12 Assume new meaning and become the prick 121.10 Becomes Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden 134.17 Bed see also Needle-Bed Beautiful maidens have their bed 004.25 A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, 038.13 Set, fixed, immovable my bed; 054.9 B There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed Beds The ocean beds were open now, and free, Been Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never I have been made by thee idolatrous; All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. We have been participant and passer-by. We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: My life-illusion has at last been broken, I am not sorry to have been your lover, When death has been captured and time overtaken, You have never been inspiring to my pen. When death has been captured and time overtaken, Beetles Pebbles and beetles and layers of earth, Before All night I bowed before a burning shrine; Before the greater dream whose dawn He stood at last before the citadel A star they knew before it came. Where night was like a shroud before an altar Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, Still farther back before the stars were spawning And longer ways before you yet to wander Art thou only a phantom before me, Before we had lost the shore. Of those the days before the quest. There was none before you, A noisome pool as once before. Antistrophes that seven before him knew, Before me, one closed portal, and the flow Before I dropped away, for I was free— Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before Before the palace a beacon flares, Befriended Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Beg “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” Began That swiftly toward me now began to fall, It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, As I began, Who knows when I first began? Begged I begged the gods to save me from such pain. Begin In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. As you begin your final travel, know Begins I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Begins the journey long. Begotten Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten Begun And find defeat ere I have much begun; 65 095.5 099.3 095.2 003.37 008.5 013.5 099.8 112.8 112.14 120.1 120.9 130.11 135.6 141.11 038.6 007.18 014.14 024.10 030.44 036.13 036.14 036.27 037.9 043.11 048.4 049.16 052.1 054.54 068.7 078.10 079.13 081.3 125.14 051.3 139.2 088.13 111.11 133.46 133.58 080.10 111.6 112.4 146.2 070.10 096.96 036.7 050.6 66 Behind Beholden A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei In all the years by time begun, To seek some image far behind some portal And cower behind the black tree boles Though they who tortured me were far behind, Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, And leave behind me all the weary works of man, Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, In front or behind, And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden Being Where sat an even greater, stranger being, A glow that develops and flows from the inner being No human being could be near her: Beings Vampirish beings of a stellar race, Beings’ Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace Being’s This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; Believe From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe Believed Believed no truth except what pleased her; Believer The true believer makes his own faith all along Believers Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, Bell All night I heard the tolling of a bell; The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Her laugh was like a silver bell. Bells Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, Beloved All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; Below Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding Who liked it above or below, Bend Round the bend, Beneath Sleeping beneath the grass; 055.6 036.19 062.2 085.9 092.13 096.98 114.2 127.7 144.3 096.59 134.17 076.4 110.3 128.10 025.11 070.13 082.2 121.6 128.30 134.20 096.83 094.1 094.12 096.95 128.33 028.8 051.58 007.1 007.19 007.37 007.51 007.53 007.57 007.63 012.51 051.27 101.6 101.26 111.1 111.5 111.9 112.1 118.1 089.4 144.2 133.49 004.44 B Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, Beneath twin moons of livid red. Sunk beneath the washing wave; In my tomb beneath the ground, In my grave beneath my mound. That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, Burn beneath the stagnant skies, Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling Benison Though every day were filled with benison Bent Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Bereft Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft Beside Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Bespoke And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow Bespoken In love bespoken, Bestow Upon her to bestow; Betray The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Better Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. And scandal, better if unfounded. Which is better than all, Between All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, Eternity between you and your haven; Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Until, between Beyond Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, Beyond the age of any sun; Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, I sought beyond no more. Beyond the soaring clouds’ infinity; 67 011.7 027.12 030.36 047.2 054.17 054.18 060.5 082.10 085.4 094.12 099.12 124.1 126.4 147.5 115.3 059.11 031.8 059.16 091.13 134.4 146.5 075.5 132.2 041.2 003.11 080.8 128.4 143.6 007.1 007.37 007.51 007.63 037.8 060.3 109.16 006.10 007.29 014.1 020.1 024.1 024.2 030.50 034.2 034.15 036.14 036.40 037.10 68 Bids Big Bind Binds Bird Birds Birds’ Birth Birthsite Bismillah Bitter Black A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And conquest everlastingly beyond, Beyond the window’s tracery Beyond the lifetime of the sun. That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. Beyond the rack’s red searing agony Beyond the violet, within the red? The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places Beyond the black beyond the stellar maze. She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Great big moonfaced politicians, The rose and the violet bind her hair; What are the dim dread images that bind Binds you, O Love. Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Whence the last birds are winging? There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Her birth and sleep. Died upon birth. To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; As from birth Until your birthsite was become effaced. Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, And bitter all the poison that it brings; The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; Of bitter woe. From all the hate of all those bitter scars. And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. And a bitter full heart, I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. I peered amid those waters black and still. Are black and gold and red, Black All things died in my black might, While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold Saw only a realm of wet black sand 050.9 055.1 055.20 076.14 084.9 088.2 094.12 111.3 127.20 066.3 142.3 019.6 083.5 109.40 028.3 079.4 093.8 033.28 044.1 081.4 066.14 035.12 039.6 110.12 111.6 112.5 112.10 133.40 037.7 096.82 007.3 007.61 007.62 013.2 013.24 024.8 044.4 123.13 011.9 011.21 012.13 046.1 046.7 048.17 054.21 057.8 B For magic black. And cower behind the black tree boles Are black and gold and red. Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, Out of the sky, a black star shines, Beyond the black beyond the stellar maze. Of black and radiant night. Blackness That pierced the blackness of a starless sky Blade No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree Blades And all the little jeweled blades of grass Blame Who can blame the mouth that sips Blandly They blandly sit upon their stools Blank Then, on this paper now so blank and white, Blankness I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. Blasted That blasted all the worlds that were. Blaze The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming Blazed And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, Blazing There was a crackle as of blazing wood, Bled They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; The air from some vast stellar carnage bled Bleeding So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. Blend To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; Blended A frantic whisper with the wind is blended It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended Bless To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. Blessed It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. Blessing It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, Blight What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, Blighted From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, Blind see also Window-Blind Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. And once thy purple eyes went blind Except to blind you;— The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, Was it only for darkness to blind me, Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, 69 061.4 062.2 067.13 075.13 081.5 105.3 125.2 125.17 127.20 134.12 089.3 093.3 082.3 100.3 138.1 025.5 124.14 030.8 015.25 034.11 106.7 084.5 106.12 029.10 106.14 112.10 015.43 111.9 119.14 070.1 096.94 108.1 108.2 108.3 119.14 110.15 017.1 046.6 045.2 029.8 030.41 033.38 036.28 043.7 073.7 70 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know 099.5 I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream 101.27 Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise 119.7 What they appeared. But there are some so blind 121.5 I am wisdom of my own self blind, 133.5 Blinded For they are blinded with the glut 030.55 Blinder Longer blinder 133.38 Blinding They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; 084.2 Blindly Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, 124.2 Bliss And in my greatest bliss I am 137.9 Bloat I now have ceased to bloat; 054.42 Bloated The death of pale-green bloated things. 030.12 And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! 103.8 Blood My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment 007.5 Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? 017.4 That once ran red as blood 039.11 With blood that had so curious a glow; 078.12 And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; 106.2 Blood-Brother Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, 068.2 Bloodless Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, 073.7 Bloodprints My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. 085.10 Blood-Red Have seen the blood-red plenilune. 030.4 I am the colour deep blood-red, 046.18 Of arabesques the blood-red sun, 055.2 The blood-red waving wastes of sand 055.11 There is pressure on her blood-red lips, 058.5 The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, 085.5 Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: 106.4 All night the blood-red ruby glares, 125.13 Blood’s The blood’s full worth. 038.8 Bloom Where the lilies bloom above; 004.26 Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, 004.35 096.26 Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom 134.23 Bloomed Where the fabled roses bloomed. 047.31 Blooms The summer blooms. 101.10 The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms 134.1 Blow Only phantom poppies blow, 047.29 Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? 056.4 The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow 096.101 Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. 099.4 Blowing And the wind is blowing cold. 002.7 And the wind is blowing cold. 002.35 A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing 111.7 Blown Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting 009.21 B Blows Blue Blue-Red Blur Boast Bodies Body Bogs 71 For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: Blown petals that fall, For the winds that have blown, A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places Blue rubies won by stealth Blue rubies won by stealth Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. 040.6 063.6 123.2 111.3 012.20 067.20 078.14 Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. The face a group of eyes above a blur She loved no man, so she would boast, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice Till her body be mine. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Thy body fevered with love’s desire, Thy body now so passionate Yield his body unto dust, And body to body, drunken forms were swaying There touches his body lightly a shiver, Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache And her body is bare. Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, And left her lovely body to oblivion; We left her far more quiet body lying there: We only left her body lying still and deep; I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; My body will not pour Body? Spread. That streams from her glowing body bare Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, Your body slender-hipped. That dead body in the ooze. A beauty, save in soul and body, And the miles of rotten bogs. 092.10 089.12 128.9 020.1 020.7 020.9 003.2 003.5 003.7 003.12 003.13 003.19 003.23 003.26 003.29 003.35 004.7 004.21 004.46 015.39 018.5 019.3 019.8 027.6 035.6 035.7 035.10 043.2 054.53 054.65 060.20 075.13 085.3 096.40 096.48 126.12 128.26 126.8 72 Boiling Bold A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Upon my tomb, this legend bold: Bole From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, Boles And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths And cower behind the black tree boles Bond There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond All substances and creatures from the bond In bond unbroken, Bone So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone Bones My bones are hoar And dead men’s bones. There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied Books There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice Boom Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; Boon Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, Borderlands In eerie borderlands I vainly waited Bore What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? And when at last my captors bore me through Are things that never ought to bore ’em. Bored Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, Born see also Passion-Born Love, and Death are born. Thine eyes were old when God was born, Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, Borne Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Both Unless in deeper love both are combined; And both my hands were covered with that red, Her vestures; both were quite revealing. Bother Nothing on earth can bother me, None of these things can bother me Bottles The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Boughs Over the treetops, under the boughs, Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Boulders Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Bound see also Spell-Bound And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? You caught me, bound me, with a spell, Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells 094.3 059.11 137.26 045.2 011.3 062.2 003.39 050.11 076.9 132.4 090.10 054.55 057.16 095.5 129.5 094.3 068.2 036.49 017.1 086.12 137.22 096.1 096.55 021.8 030.9 043.16 057.3 036.41 134.14 051.25 106.9 128.36 142.2 142.9 129.9 062.8 147.1 059.4 124.10 027.4 042.4 051.60 072.7 080.6 B They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; And there were living, ancient mummies bound Bow Her bow toward the cleaner west I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, Bowed All night I bowed before a burning shrine; Boy That in the later days a boy would come, We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Brain Then beating to the chambers of my brain One thought more torturing usurped my brain, I am the empty brain Brain-Shaped Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, Brake On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, Branch To every branch. The tree had long since died, Branches Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Branches’ The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, Branching The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, Branch-Twined Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof Brand You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, Brazen On long, metallic clang, the brazen door Bread And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, Break There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay It’s the break of day, Breakers Where breakers and lonely waters roar, Breaking Remember the days that will come of the breaking Breaks Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Breast Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking To capture a breast, to hold the hair Moulds her breast. Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Breasts Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking Over his breasts his fingers hover, With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Breath And its faintest breath Thy rotten breath Who asked and answered in a breath Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. Your rotten breath 73 084.6 104.7 048.18 124.1 007.18 026.2 046.39 080.12 084.10 133.18 088.3 125.22 093.10 093.5 011.18 091.11 011.7 017.7 081.2 124.4 015.46 086.7 143.4 060.13 005.3 066.15 003.19 060.19 066.8 092.6 003.13 004.8 005.1 018.3 019.1 020.9 096.44 002.17 012.8 014.34 025.12 067.8 74 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei But could not move or even draw one breath: By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed With the breath of the web-faced things asleep Breathless In the breathless, waiting morn; There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; Brede Should love be told in brede or breve? Breeze On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. Breezes Her step is lighter than the summer breezes Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Breve Should love be told in brede or breve? Bridges On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. Bridgeway I take the bridgeway you already know. Brief While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Briefer Briefer, weaker, Briggs And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, Bright For a little while, our life is bright, Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. Bright-Eyed With bright-eyed ecstasy, exultant wrath, Brightlier And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on Brilliance To prove the brilliance of their wits, Brilliant Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, Bring The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I know that death itself will never bring release; He strove to bring a light. Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, Bringing Hetaira, matron, virgin bringing Is it the glow so magically bringing Brings And bitter all the poison that it brings; The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings The night that brings a sleep. Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Broke I could not move though mind and spirit broke. They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Broken Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, 093.13 101.8 125.3 021.6 044.1 101.2 042.14 131.4 041.5 125.1 042.14 131.4 147.14 031.7 096.1 134.14 133.37 138.39 004.31 051.59 086.11 096.53 118.11 137.18 082.13 066.11 138.10 078.14 119.6 003.5 013.30 014.3 096.31 049.25 110.11 007.62 013.3 036.64 146.7 072.14 084.7 006.7 059.2 B Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. My life-illusion has at last been broken, Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, Restoring all things lost and small things broken. Brooded And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. Brotherhood What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! Brought That brought to Mirtylon its doom, Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, I brought him dreams of eternal night, The twilight brought no ease from the hot That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. Brow Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; The scented hair above thy brow, With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Brown Dream, with the brown grass withering Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace Brows Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging The garlands from their brows unbound Brute “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; Budding Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Builder I am builder, I am maker, Building Building on to what goal later, Burden Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; Burial And find its cosmic burial Buried But only an ancient, buried passion sings. Of buried kings, and empires perilous; We buried her in the solemn fall Where its buried cities sleep Now they have buried me in this dark pit, The maid I love was buried long ago; Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Burls Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung Burn Thy lips that in the midnight burn, With lips that to thine own lips burn, To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, They would not burn me quickly on their spit; Mandrakes writhe and witch-fires burn, On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, Burn beneath the stagnant skies, The golden petals burn, Burned I have burned all my flame at the altar, They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; Burning At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment 75 087.4 120.1 122.10 147.12 011.6 022.2 030.18 043.1 046.5 048.13 090.8 003.14 004.19 026.8 058.9 009.11 114.6 015.21 049.12 137.27 093.5 133.8 133.62 124.13 030.39 007.64 026.11 035.1 047.4 087.1 099.1 103.1 093.9 004.5 004.77 086.7 096.25 103.5 125.10 125.22 126.4 134.15 043.17 084.6 003.21 003.25 007.5 76 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, All night I bowed before a burning shrine; All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; And still to flushed and heated faces burning, You drift along the desert’s burning sands; But only and ever his flesh is burning, With torture on their burning spits. All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, And deeper fires, burning, burning, burning, Of burning, baleful scarlet spun The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; And burning eyes along each limb. It spun Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, In the mystical burning pallor of the moon When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, Burnouses Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, Burns Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; And how my love that burns herein so deep Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces Burped Who burped a remarkable ditty, Burrows While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, Burst A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, He burst asunder all the whelming bars Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, But In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching But a moment will come and death destroy But even thou, Oh Myrrhiline, But in thine arms, Myrrhiline, But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, But only an ancient, buried passion sings. But all is mute forevermore. The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; But weariness. He sought the infinite in life, but now But found no other than the great refrain: The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming And find that what I thought so great is but 007.13 007.18 013.6 015.6 015.29 017.6 018.11 030.48 034.10 043.26 051.52 055.14 079.12 085.4 086.11 091.12 096.86 101.4 130.7 141.7 096.83 019.5 031.11 061.9 111.1 145.2 061.5 021.1 024.5 075.10 003.17 004.33 004.41 004.80 007.17 007.41 007.52 007.61 007.64 010.4 013.2 013.12 014.4 014.19 015.25 016.3 B But only and ever his flesh is burning, But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks But the eyes have no vision, I sought, but sought in vain. In search of something lost, but never near it; Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? But the gulf is cold But no voice shall speak again But we turned too late and we knew our fate “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng But still assail the deeper firmament. For all things die, but they die most regretful But they whose life was barren are most fretful, But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. But never changes, never fades, And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm But now that time is gone of yore But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss But the musty tale can never be told But a smile has crossed her quiet face— But she, in decadent fall, Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— Desired of many but achieved by few. But phantoms; life and death part each of other; The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, But inbetween; whose phosphorescent glow, But all at once the shell of that cocoon But something from the dark side of the moon A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, But when I passed and left them in their gloom, Caught me with safety but a league away. But punish, since their power I dared to test. I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall But all the strange and withered things still hung But could not move or even draw one breath: But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? But ennui still is mine. But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know But from the sundered room I never crept— That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. I know there are no princesses, but you Beauty possesses, but would not care For things external, but of higher worth, 77 018.11 029.12 031.7 033.33 036.8 037.4 043.12 047.16 047.33 048.3 049.17 050.14 051.15 051.17 051.19 051.42 053.7 054.25 054.51 056.7 057.21 058.11 065.23 067.54 068.12 070.12 073.13 074.11 075.4 075.9 075.12 076.5 081.13 086.2 086.8 088.8 090.11 092.7 093.11 093.13 096.17 096.24 096.49 099.5 105.13 112.16 113.1 116.2 116.10 78 By A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The years away intended, but for leaping What they appeared. But there are some so blind I listen, but I do not hear them fall, But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! But when my span But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand But alas! Your name is Myrtle, “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” “But I’m perfectly moral.” “But Miss Shere—” Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; By the girls they gave their love. Is whispered by the sad wind sighing More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; I have been made by thee idolatrous; And by the dark caress was claimed forever, Blue rubies won by stealth By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, And by a hideous world was crucified By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, By seas that thunder vainly to the moon; Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft By softer gold than gold. Naught by thy loveliness Or remain by the willows With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered And then passed by. By forgotten poets told. By the legions of the pest. And one by one with the setting sun And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, What though you walk by Mammon unattended, And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth In all the years by time begun, Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? By forest track 119.5 121.5 122.13 125.15 129.4 129.16 133.59 134.2 135.10 139.11 139.13 139.17 147.11 003.3 003.22 004.28 004.62 007.26 008.5 011.23 012.20 012.30 012.32 024.4 024.12 026.7 031.2 031.4 031.8 032.4 032.9 033.27 035.2 036.41 036.50 045.6 045.19 046.40 047.15 048.20 048.23 050.8 051.1 051.43 055.6 059.4 059.12 061.2 B Blue rubies won by stealth By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; Desired of many but achieved by few. The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers And widening inch by inch along the floor That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells I could not turn though fronted by the rack. By bathing me in streams of molten lead. I thought ironic laughter passed me by. I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever And all strange things once covered by the sea By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed With only rotting corpses lying by, My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. Though all my days were added one by one, Perfection gains by contrast and may be And you will never know what years drift by. To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, Heard legends not by earthly voices told, By a cypress-veiled lagoon. The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; Here, by the hand you held While I pass by The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, By the luscious curtains gleaming. The authors’ names I know by rote, The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs 79 067.20 067.30 068.12 073.13 078.3 080.6 083.10 084.4 085.8 087.13 095.3 101.8 103.7 105.14 115.1 117.11 118.4 119.14 120.6 122.10 122.11 126.2 130.3 130.19 131.14 132.3 133.41 134.13 136.4 137.5 141.3 141.19 142.8 146.5 147.1 C Cadences Caesar Calair Call Calling Calls Calm Came All night I heard the cadences of doom They also ought to know their Caesar, To see the Hylots of Calair, For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies The lonely, lovely sea-maidens call, Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call The city rang with joyful call Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, And only echo answer a low call. And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; When down the hillside came a long, low crying, There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? And after this, there came to me one green And of that thing there came to me a fear A star they knew before it came. To perish when my later footsteps came; Yet we like a woman came to cloy. When the night came down again. Of those who came to praise this day Across a velvet sky. And when I came. Out of a dusky corner came the stare Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, I came upon a curious great throne The answer came, where I in torment lay, The dark, walled city slowly came in view, Whence came that unknown color? Was its source And after this, there came to me one green Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed The tolling came like measures for a spell. And from a dusky corner came the stare And yet I could not move. There came a creak, Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, Stranger than ever came Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came 094.2 137.23 030.14 013.31 020.6 045.10 049.2 096.77 122.5 122.12 015.7 020.3 147.7 083.9 120.7 015.3 015.33 017.4 017.12 029.1 029.9 030.44 036.52 046.38 048.8 049.3 071.4 072.5 073.4 076.3 080.13 086.9 088.1 090.1 092.12 094.8 104.5 104.10 105.9 109.31 122.2 128.15 C With each lesson came complete Who came from near and came from far Camel’s Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Can Can escape to tell of muted grief. Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, Go! I can not bear thee, Go! My destiny, and found what men can never guess; He walks where none can know or see, Its equal can confess. Mine the love that can fade not or falter, Than which no love can have supremer worth. I can not close an eye, I can not move a thigh, I can not even sigh Stares with an eye she can not shun. As deathless as ever a worm can be, But the musty tale can never be told I can not bear you. Go! I can not find, nor do I seem to place And dreams that can not be. Who can blame the mouth that sips These things I love, yet words can never tell Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, I love you for the beauty all can see, And any Latin phrase can quote, When I can make my students Cram. I am as mad as mad can be, Nothing on earth can bother me, None of these things can bother me For I am as mad as mad can be. That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Candles Tall candles there were dreaming Cannabis Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, Canst Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Can’t Can’t you see that I’d be able They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, Canter Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. Capped Till with derrick they capped him, Caps see White-Caps Captors And when at last my captors bore me through Capture As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture In the soft, first capture. To capture moods that change or leave; Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, To capture an errant eel To capture a breast, to hold the hair Capture In my domain alone you’ll capture 81 140.3 140.7 096.95 006.12 006.14 012.10 013.10 014.9 032.10 043.19 051.49 054.4 054.5 054.6 055.4 057.18 057.21 067.10 077.5 096.6 100.3 114.9 116.7 116.13 137.6 137.10 142.1 142.2 142.9 142.10 146.3 136.3 096.31 097.2 135.8 138.5 069.8 145.3 086.12 015.11 033.20 042.11 051.13 060.15 060.19 067.48 82 Captured A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. When death has been captured and time overtaken, When death has been captured and time overtaken, Caravan And take the caravan Caravans And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, Of caravans that throng Cardinal Like cardinal numbers adding without end; Care The inner beauty I more deeply care Beauty possesses, but would not care You care for that warm house of all your own, Or starfire care Cared Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing Careful The changing fancy and the careful rows Carefully Your polished phrases spoken carefully, Caress The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; Caress. And by the dark caress was claimed forever, Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Caressed Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; Caresses I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, Caressing Caressing her? Duty, in her lips caressing! Carnage The air from some vast stellar carnage bled Carrion With knowledge of the carrion And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! Carved Jades exquisite, delicately carved ivory, Cast Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, And cast them for our footfall where Casually Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; Cat The cat on the fence, and world conditions, Caught You caught me, bound me, with a spell, Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise They caught me in the wasteland in the west. Caught me with safety but a league away. Cause Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. Cave They found him deep within an ancient cave I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding Caverned Till at last, in her caverned halls 006.24 130.11 141.11 096.99 096.59 096.93 115.2 114.11 116.2 117.2 133.68 015.37 117.7 121.2 003.6 003.28 011.23 129.10 057.13 003.3 007.23 020.3 020.4 075.5 096.11 096.49 058.8 100.8 106.12 030.31 103.8 096.14 027.3 049.13 129.15 142.4 042.4 059.7 086.1 086.2 128.32 059.1 089.1 060.21 C And stood tremendous to my caverned room, Caverns’ And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom Cease And never will the present cease, I will not find it till all things shall cease, Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: Ceased When time had ceased, when every world was riven, I now have ceased to bloat; Worms now have ceased to gloat, Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. Ceaseless Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, Celebrate And celebrate our festival. Celestial Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, Censers The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; Centuries The dust of centuries lies on her head; Cerements With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, With all the dreadful cerements of the grave Certainly “Certainly not.” “You certainly will.” Certainty And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, Chair Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; Chalice I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice The nectar of their chalice And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. Challenge His cosmic challenge in an alien world. Chamber That followed through the chamber where I fled. In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, Chambers Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, Then beating to the chambers of my brain I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; Champak And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, Chance The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, Change To capture moods that change or leave; And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, Changed The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. Changes But never changes, never fades, 83 089.10 094.7 004.78 036.58 073.12 036.37 054.42 054.43 056.4 079.10 036.41 111.11 049.4 024.2 040.3 099.2 029.2 090.2 139.4 139.16 050.8 129.15 003.7 033.5 129.8 024.14 088.6 088.10 076.2 080.12 124.5 096.88 036.28 122.5 042.11 050.8 112.5 007.44 053.7 84 Changing A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And surge of falling flame of far dominions, Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. The changing fancy and the careful rows Chant A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. Chantment Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Chaos And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, Charm She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of I love you for the charm earth gave to you, To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. Charming Nor always full the charming sleeve— And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her Charms And in her movements, languid charms abide. Charnel Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. Chart To chart the labyrinths of long assailing; Chasten The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten Chaunting The faithful, with far chaunting. Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime Cheeks Thy cheeks that glow, Cherish Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Cherished And the ways that I cherished. Chewed The chewed remains of something used for bait; Child Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. As of a lost and hungry child. Then die Random child Children Or purple, dear to children of the dust, Chill I watched the universe grow cold and chill; I am all deaths that chill, Chink To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! Chloral Like a drinker of chloral I dream, Choke My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke Choking With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, Choral A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, Pain, and a choral delight; And over all a choral singing. He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Chorus Chorus Chuckle At me and slyly chuckle while they keep 034.8 077.8 117.7 007.31 138.28 043.27 134.22 041.7 096.43 116.9 119.14 042.17 113.7 053.5 017.4 104.9 105.11 031.10 129.14 096.78 113.13 004.17 043.25 033.24 087.6 075.11 089.7 133.47 051.2 036.34 133.30 022.9 043.10 072.12 104.12 068.5 007.30 021.4 049.27 068.6 046.33 054.40 C Cicadas And the cicadas sing, Cinder I am the cinder wiped away, Cindering As a cindering star, Circling Athwart the circling citadel of stars, Citadel Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, He stood at last before the citadel Athwart the circling citadel of stars, Cities While empty cities rot away They saw Mercurial cities rust Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, Where its buried cities sleep On the cities sleeping there Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. City The city rang with joyful call The dark, walled city slowly came in view, And I, and all that phantom city, died. A city of a vast antiquity. Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Clad Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Clad him alone; Claim To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? Claimed And by the dark caress was claimed forever, Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Clamped They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; Clang I knocked upon the portal till with clang On long, metallic clang, the brazen door Clanging As I remember, there were clanging gongs Clap I clap, and at the sign Clarke’s Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; Classes And to the students in my classes, Classic He surely was a classic beauty.” Classicist Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I. Classicorum Illussimae and classicorum Clawed So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone Cleaner Her bow toward the cleaner west Clear The clear, pure warble of a nightingale Whose perfect euphony would be as clear And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear 85 096.87 133.54 063.8 036.2 011.16 024.10 036.2 010.11 030.35 036.22 047.4 047.9 051.42 094.4 049.2 086.9 086.14 095.6 131.8 145.5 017.11 046.28 015.20 011.23 014.7 014.35 128.27 084.1 081.1 081.2 080.1 096.21 129.7 137.7 137.28 137.1 137.19 137.29 137.21 029.10 090.10 048.18 021.5 028.12 051.12 077.6 86 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Clearer Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, Clever That your words are clever, witty, Cliff Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding Cliffs Across a purple ground to purple cliffs I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; Climb They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, Climbed Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Clime And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime Clings A form that clings to a satyr sings, Clink The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! Cloister And in this pedagogic cloister, Close Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, In life’s dead close; I am the sweet close winding-sheet Thus I close my doors I can not close an eye, Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, Closed In search of closed escapes. A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. Before me, one closed portal, and the flow Close-Hidden Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Closer Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, And when in closer human haunts I tired, Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, Closes A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes O Love, a flower closes In aeons closes Closing The scattered symbols of those closing pages Lips parting and closing over the draught her Closlier What words convey how closelier she follows Closure Down the far closure of the valley, sky, Cloths In gummy cloths of long and human hair. Cloud And all the air was misty as a cloud. Cloudlike Wherein a cloudlike throng Clouds’ Beyond the soaring clouds’ infinity; Clove That clove through midnight where no other stirred, Cloven With the fresher tracks of cloven Clover And the fallen sweet clover, Cloy Yet we like a woman came to cloy. 099.12 120.2 135.5 089.4 071.2 131.14 130.15 141.15 074.1 053.8 113.13 023.5 022.1 022.9 138.23 003.14 008.6 009.4 046.45 052.7 054.4 073.12 110.6 134.10 045.16 075.14 078.10 011.14 003.23 036.55 090.13 101.14 109.1 133.60 036.35 129.2 041.9 147.6 104.8 106.8 109.35 037.10 079.5 126.14 123.9 046.38 C Clung Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung Coast In the distance sank the coast in the dank Coasts From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Cobwebs Amidst great cobwebs hanging everywhere There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, Cocoon The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead But all at once the shell of that cocoon Coeds The coeds only get along Coffin To coffin. earth, the dead. Stained is the coffin floor Coils And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? Cold And the wind is blowing cold. Has the cold of death When the cold monotone And the wind is blowing cold. Rest, with the cold ground resting The cold apocalypse of sand. I watched the universe grow cold and chill; The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; But the gulf is cold Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold Dark, dark, cold, dead, Of its cold sea-tomb. She will go in the cold moonlight She will sink on the cold, cold ground, In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; Colder And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, Coldly Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests Collapsed When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? College In their ideal, idyllic college, Color Oh color hideous, appalling, mad, Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, Skeins of fluctuant color, lit With that wild color overspread, Whence came that unknown color? Was its source The unknown color hostile in pursuit Colossal To fall amid colossal precipices. Of wave that smote against colossal wave. The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse Colour I was the only colour when I am the colour deep blood-red, I am the colour yet to be; Coloured Fourth was I in the coloured host, Colours With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace All colours else were wan and tame, We were the colours that his love Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, 87 093.9 048.9 048.1 072.1 104.1 075.3 075.9 138.6 054.11 054.46 027.4 002.7 002.18 002.27 002.35 009.1 010.20 036.34 040.3 047.16 054.21 054.57 057.10 065.1 065.13 131.6 120.2 014.7 085.4 138.19 017.9 017.17 034.6 055.7 088.1 088.12 079.14 094.10 107.5 046.3 046.18 046.42 046.26 025.9 046.23 046.34 046.47 88 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Combined Unless in deeper love both are combined; Come But a moment will come and death destroy For us the future never will come, Remember the days that will come of the breaking Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, That in the later days a boy would come, And farther still when life was yet to come, You will come back to me, You will come back to me, lost lover, Come back with setting suns You will come back some day, lost lover, Come back, come back to me, Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, For there will come none after, You’ve come again. You keep me company here, Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: I come to men with unrequiting passion, Their ravage, if they had not come from you. I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Now in the mind come messages unspoken, Comes A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, Withdraw till dawn comes gray. And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, Love comes. I know that I shall never be Comfort I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, Comforting A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, Coming In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, Till the coming of dawn. She waits the coming of the golden guest; It merely hinted of the coming week. Companion Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, What goal, what new companion did I seek? Companions My old companions waited all around: Company You’ve come again. You keep me company here, To keep me company lest I go mad: Comparisons Comparisons and conjugations, Compassionate Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, 051.25 004.33 004.69 005.3 006.23 026.2 036.26 039.2 039.7 039.8 039.19 039.20 051.61 052.8 077.2 096.22 119.9 121.14 124.8 147.10 015.47 020.11 069.13 096.84 096.92 097.7 110.2 113.9 124.9 038.13 043.13 065.20 066.6 084.14 068.2 072.9 072.2 077.2 103.12 137.13 051.55 C Complete Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; And I would let it in complete eclipse With each lesson came complete Comprehension Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, Comrades Around and see the comrades that are mine; Around, and see the comrades that I had; And conceals like a curtain the shrine, Concealed Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall Conceits The pedants utter strange conceits Condemn And ashes consume what the elders condemn. And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. Conditions The cat on the fence, and world conditions, Cone A metal titan shapen like a cone, Confess Its equal can confess. Confused That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Conjugations Comparisons and conjugations, Conning And wonder what we’re conning to. Conqueror For Death the Conqueror at last was king; Conquest And conquest everlastingly beyond, Constellations In constellations now to space-dust shrunken Consume Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? And ashes consume what the elders condemn. And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. Consuming see also All-Consuming Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming Consummate Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, Contain The earth could not contain Contained Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; Contains Contains what a flagon always should! Arrays and disarrays the house contains, Content Therefor am I, with what I have, content, 89 013.25 115.13 140.3 007.29 087.10 103.10 043.34 127.3 138.9 130.8 141.8 142.4 076.6 032.10 120.4 137.13 138.18 107.9 050.9 036.23 043.1 043.28 130.8 141.8 015.27 051.47 014.16 107.6 022.6 117.6 050.13 90 Contents A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Content to know the image of the dream, She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. Continents In continents and islands that are sunken, Contrast Perfection gains by contrast and may be Convey What words convey how closelier she follows Cooing My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Cool And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids The sight of goblets cool and rounded, On which the cool green rain gleams. Cooled Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; Coral Her coral isles and shadowy pearls Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses Coronal And now at last I crown me with a coronal The white-caps and the foam their coronal. Core And rotten to the very core, Corner Out of a dusky corner came the stare And from a dusky corner came the stare Corpse Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned My corpse was once a festering sore As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... Corpses On curious corpses, gold and green. For green corpses he did lust, And all around, the weary corpses lie; With only rotting corpses lying by, They left me also rotten corpses there Corpse’s And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. Corridors So little light, so many corridors, Corruption Corruption. Six feet deep Cosmic His cosmic challenge in an alien world. That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! And find its cosmic burial And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, I am dust in cosmic outways resting, Could And yet, in all my travels I could only find 113.11 129.12 036.21 117.11 041.9 075.1 007.7 011.22 038.13 060.12 066.1 128.2 136.10 015.6 060.4 101.24 013.7 020.8 054.50 072.5 104.5 054.19 054.48 072.13 104.13 030.24 046.13 103.2 103.7 103.11 029.11 050.2 054.32 024.14 025.4 030.39 036.10 071.13 080.11 105.8 112.5 133.4 133.24 013.15 C The earth could not contain Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! He leered so vilely, Horror could not save And when they oped they could not find Could wing no flight, Where only courage of lost hope could ravel His sunken eyes could only see There could not be so still a sea So few the days, so much that one could know, And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm I could not move though mind and spirit broke. Whose source could only, be some fearful shape And when the talons loosened, I could see I could not turn though fronted by the rack. They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; They gave me back my eyes so I could peer And of its face no vestige could be seen, Stretched farther than horizons. I could see But could not move or even draw one breath: They left to me my eyes, so I could stare And yet I could not move. There came a creak, I scarce could know the evil that I did; And truths I could not otherwise discover. And of my presence, I could feel no sign No human being could be near her: Where none could know or share. I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! For who could ever be a prof. Counterpart That has no counterpart in lands of time A counterpart of what is still to be? Countless Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge Courage Where only courage of lost hope could ravel Course And twist their sinuous downward course— A glowing form, it drifted on a course Cover Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Cover the form whose hand still gropes. Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Covered see also Grass-Covered In the streets now covered deep, Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, 91 014.16 025.1 025.2 025.4 029.7 030.43 034.13 036.3 046.11 048.11 050.1 054.25 072.14 078.11 079.11 083.10 084.7 084.11 087.9 090.5 093.2 093.13 103.9 104.10 106.11 120.12 122.3 128.10 134.6 135.12 138.33 053.3 118.10 011.13 036.3 038.10 088.4 003.13 003.35 062.10 098.1 101.18 129.9 047.34 057.4 92 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And all strange things once covered by the sea And both my hands were covered with that red, Covers And the form that it covers is thine. Cower While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, And cower behind the black tree boles At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. Crackle There was a crackle as of blazing wood, Cram When I can make my students Cram. Crawl I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl Crawled I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, Crawling For sick flames and the crawling dust, Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, Crawls Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Crazed More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; Creak And yet I could not move. There came a creak, Creator The great Creator, Creature To watch a little creature pick Not a creature lived in all the land, Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes Oh little creature, lost in time and space, Oh little creature, whether old or young, Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Creatures see also Sea-Creatures Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. Only slimy creatures stare Phosphorescent creatures go And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, Part human creatures creeping from their lair. All substances and creatures from the bond Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon Long-dead creatures murmur and sigh Air and water creatures fight, Creatures’ Purer than earthly creatures’, Creep Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes Fishes swim and monsters creep I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, Creepers And hanging creepers that reluctantly Of creepers, and where head should be was growing 095.3 106.9 043.36 061.5 062.2 079.10 106.7 137.10 082.12 045.3 072.3 074.10 075.11 090.11 046.14 089.5 062.4 007.26 104.10 133.10 030.15 057.6 063.1 077.1 077.9 077.13 025.12 047.8 047.27 059.8 061.5 072.4 076.9 095.4 104.4 105.7 125.7 126.10 032.6 010.2 047.3 054.35 125.2 011.11 092.8 C Creeping An unseen step on the creeping moss— Part human creatures creeping from their lair. Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping Creeps A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Crept The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Unto my feet a little trickle crept But from the sundered room I never crept— Crest A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest Cresting I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Crevice Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. Crib Of infant in the crib Cried “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, Cries And it cries They added madness to my frantic cries Crimson White poppy of the crimson eve— My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, The crimson, never-setting sun, Upon the crimson eve, Croon And houris sad songs croon. Cross Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Crossed But a smile has crossed her quiet face— And when I crossed the imperial weaving span Crosses No traveler crosses now the land, Crouched Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall Crown And now at last I crown me with a coronal Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown Crowned Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, Crucified And by a hideous world was crucified Cruel Though they, with cruel joy, had given me “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” Crumbled Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; Crumbling Sunken walls of crumbling stone There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne Crumpled Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; Crushed The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; 93 056.3 072.4 089.5 112.11 023.7 034.1 048.7 059.10 078.1 105.13 092.9 133.23 059.4 133.44 049.17 086.13 002.20 084.3 042.2 046.22 055.10 109.2 096.60 056.1 056.5 056.9 058.11 071.5 010.17 088.9 013.7 068.10 068.1 026.7 084.12 139.3 010.2 036.20 047.11 057.2 124.13 040.1 94 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Like the voiceless cry The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry How much more exquisite to hear me cry In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, From the cry And I hope that you won’t cry dear, Crying When down the hillside came a long, low crying, There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying Cryptic I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, Crystal And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, Cup Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; I am all cups that fill, Curious On curious corpses, gold and green. They are curious things that hide in the woods I came upon a curious great throne With blood that had so curious a glow; They left me morsels, curious and queer, Curled Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, Current Or rests where an ocean current laves More modish than the current mode; Curse The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, Oblivion had laid its deathless curse Curtain And conceals like a curtain the shrine, Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling Curtained He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep Curtains By the luscious curtains gleaming. Curves Her garments only know what curves and hollows Cycles I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, Cypress Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, Cypress-Veiled By a cypress-veiled lagoon. Cyrenaya O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go Cry 084.7 001.5 007.44 007.49 013.23 015.35 015.45 045.10 088.9 089.6 103.6 125.6 133.43 135.2 015.3 020.9 011.17 036.50 051.12 097.2 133.28 030.24 062.1 076.3 078.12 087.11 081.3 089.13 060.10 128.6 086.13 107.1 043.34 147.5 014.2 136.4 041.11 013.29 112.5 068.1 126.2 096.34 096.37 096.97 D Daggers Dais Damp Dance Of daggers, fair appearances retreat Save one upon a dais standing tall, Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, Danced Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? Dances Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Dancing Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: Dancing-Girl Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, Dandelions And a smell of dandelions was Danger Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, So long as there was never danger; Dangerous She loved to play a dangerous game Dank Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. In the distance sank the coast in the dank Dared But punish, since their power I dared to test. Dark And the days are dark, That still preserve dark ancient stains Within the pool so fathomless and dark. And by the dark caress was claimed forever, To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage The dark star’s necrophilic race. Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, In the dark sea-grave. So dark whichever pathway one may go, Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep Dark, dark, cold, dead, Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, Where the trees form a little dark room: There, ringed with dark trees holy, Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace The mouth where something dark was trickling through. I watched them till, from out the greater dark, But something from the dark side of the moon 121.11 092.3 054.21 051.46 096.37 015.18 066.15 015.26 096.22 006.18 136.11 045.7 128.14 128.13 011.16 017.16 048.9 086.8 002.9 010.3 011.20 011.23 014.33 030.28 036.62 038.13 045.7 047.5 050.3 051.5 054.39 054.57 059.11 061.7 065.10 065.17 070.13 073.8 074.9 075.12 96 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, The dark, walled city slowly came in view, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, I have met darker nights than that of old, Deep loving, dark thinking, I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. Out of the dark where the black moons creep, So deeply dark and fair Darkened And through its darkened window see no sky: Darkling His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky Darkly In shadow-ruled dominions darkly fated For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Darkness Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft I have riven all darkness to find thee. Was it only for darkness to blind me, And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. Till darkness falls—it never will— In darkness absolute, and listening hard, Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why Darting A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. Dawn Till the dawn. Petals tremulous with dew at dawn Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. Before the greater dream whose dawn There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. From dawn to dusk her white sides feel Till the coming of dawn. And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Withdraw till dawn comes gray. Dawn-Age Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, Dawning And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning Dawn’s For dawn’s rebirth. 081.10 086.9 087.1 088.10 091.14 096.34 103.1 122.9 123.14 124.14 125.2 127.6 118.2 014.17 036.51 040.7 031.8 043.5 043.7 053.8 055.17 074.2 147.8 075.14 003.36 004.58 007.12 007.52 014.14 015.46 031.14 044.1 053.8 060.17 065.20 066.2 066.15 079.7 096.84 059.15 036.25 111.6 112.1 109.8 D Day I dreamed the night would never turn to day. And the tired day; Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; You will come back some day, lost lover, For a love that was fleeting as day? The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, Of those who came to praise this day All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Dream of forgetful day, Though every day were filled with benison Their elders have promised them a day of returning, In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; I am night erasing day, Say, sixty-five, not one day under, The elder gods have promised a day of returning It’s the break of day, Days And the days are dead, The days are short And the days are dark, The days are drear, And the days are dead, Remember the days that will come of the breaking Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; That in the later days a boy would come, The older glory of the days that were Was there a goddess in the days of old, How all my days are as an aria played Shall even as my lost days be foredone, When all the olden days are over, Whisper of the days of old, Of those the days before the quest. So few the days, so much that one could know, No voice to tell of days that were, The days for which the heart should be most grateful Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, Though all my days were added one by one, And all your days, and mine, a vain device. And the days that are dead, She rules a realm decayed from elder days, Dazzle With dazzle of a monstrous flame, Dazzling Such dazzling stores of useless learning! Dead see also Long-Dead And the days are dead, The dry dead leaves And the days are dead, Beautiful youths have long lain dead 97 007.40 009.6 015.6 039.19 043.8 044.7 049.3 096.71 096.85 109.6 115.3 130.5 131.6 133.55 138.32 141.5 143.4 002.4 002.8 002.9 002.25 002.34 005.3 006.5 007.45 007.46 026.2 026.12 027.1 031.1 031.12 039.1 047.12 049.16 050.1 053.12 070.4 096.5 115.1 118.14 123.3 127.17 030.42 138.38 002.4 002.15 002.34 004.27 98 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Never again will a dead girl thrill Poisonous and beautiful and dead; In life’s dead close; On the dead earth; For all is dead, and all is still, Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof The poppies of the dead Of dead desire. Of desolation and the livid dead, Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. For I was his, that horror of the dead. They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? Risen a spectre from the dead Mark where dead Atlantis lies Lies upon the dead drowned men. For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead With olden dead endeavor all erased, And I am dead. And I am dead. For I am dead. To coffin. earth, the dead. About me, who am dead. Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, Or in my dead flesh foul to float, Dark, dark, cold, dead, Silent, still, old, dead; Dead, dead, For ever dead. Dead, dead, For ever dead. Soul? Dead. For ever dead. For ever dead, dead, dead. And the slimy things of the slimy dead Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, And dead men’s bones. Where he sleeps with the dead. The poppies of the dead From having watched the dead rose petals strew Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. I found no door, and when all hope lay dead For I was its, that horror from the dead. 004.66 006.2 009.4 009.10 010.13 011.7 012.12 013.8 017.3 025.12 027.14 029.14 030.34 036.11 039.13 043.32 046.19 047.25 047.36 048.5 051.6 054.1 054.3 054.7 054.11 054.15 054.28 054.44 054.57 054.58 054.59 054.60 054.61 054.62 054.67 054.68 054.69 057.9 057.14 057.16 065.16 067.12 068.3 069.7 073.11 075.3 085.10 088.7 090.14 D The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. The endless silence of the endless dead; There is no picture of her dear dead face, The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. And the days that are dead, That dead body in the ooze. Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, Deadly The deadly hardness of reality, Deal “A great deal matters. Who are you?” Dear Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Rest, with the dear things lying Or purple, dear to children of the dust, There is no picture of her dear dead face, Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways I am telling you goodbye, dear, And I hope that you won’t cry dear, Dearer To all the world; and dearer still are those Dearest Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Only you, and the past, my dearest Dearth In its dearth; Death Has the cold of death To Death and Time. All to death must go. But a moment will come and death destroy DEATH: I offer thee such dreams THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: I offer thee the wealth THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! And I am sick to death with utter weariness I know that death itself will never bring release; And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Of death. Love, and Death are born. Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, The death of pale-green bloated things. Our thoughts will be more sad than death is And its death is the death of the world. Wine of life and of death I have drunken, And to no futile dream of death aspires, 99 095.11 097.4 099.6 099.10 107.5 108.1 108.2 108.3 123.3 126.12 138.11 120.11 139.8 008.8 009.3 051.2 099.10 117.1 135.1 135.2 117.5 008.8 123.19 009.12 002.18 004.13 004.20 004.33 012.1 012.7 012.11 012.17 012.18 012.26 012.27 012.43 012.44 012.53 013.27 013.30 014.6 014.36 021.8 025.10 030.12 039.4 043.24 043.29 051.20 100 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Death: I offer you such dreams Traveler: I scorn you, Death, Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: I offer you the wealth Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not Death: However far you go, I wait. Death: We will. We will, and I know when. Death: Not long, not long.... But phantoms; life and death part each of other; Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since I too was fastened on that tree of death. With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, Of death itself, there now was left no trace, Where Death in death all things did not immerse. For Death the Conqueror at last was king; When death has been captured and time overtaken, When death has been captured and time overtaken, Death-Fevers Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. Death-Knell My soul’s death-knell. Deathless That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? As deathless and old as the deathless sea, As deathless as ever a worm can be, For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. Oblivion had laid its deathless curse We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: Deathlessly With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, Deathly This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, With their faces dissolved and deathly heads Deaths In separate deaths, so long, Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, And in recurring deaths escape them never. I am all deaths that chill, Death’s I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, Debris Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered Decadent As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love 067.1 067.7 067.11 067.17 067.18 067.26 067.27 067.43 067.44 067.53 067.55 067.57 070.12 076.10 093.14 096.2 097.3 105.5 107.3 107.8 107.9 130.11 141.11 017.14 013.16 004.76 027.8 057.17 057.18 085.14 107.1 112.13 003.2 004.35 045.6 062.3 039.23 051.24 087.14 133.30 046.6 036.11 D her, But she, in decadent fall, Decayed She rules a realm decayed from elder days, Decaying see also Half-Decaying And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, Decibels A tolling like a myriad decibels Decision And the mind’s decision, Decomposition In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled Deeds Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. Deemed At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, Deeming And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb Deep Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. Drowning as willow-fingers drowned, deep—deep— Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep Over his loins his deep eyes rove. It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, And how my love that burns herein so deep And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, We only left her body lying still and deep; Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Deep stems twining around the mandrake, There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; I am the colour deep blood-red, Lost Atlantis slumbers deep, In the streets now covered deep, That hung on our deep sea-graves. Six feet deep I lie; Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned Corruption. Six feet deep Six feet deep. The harvest, and to revel deep A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, They found him deep within an ancient cave Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; 101 003.33 065.23 127.17 007.43 080.3 033.35 054.23 059.13 128.27 128.28 105.12 026.3 006.20 011.25 012.21 014.1 018.4 027.12 031.11 034.11 035.10 036.14 036.62 038.5 043.14 046.18 047.1 047.34 048.16 054.2 054.19 054.32 054.34 054.38 057.3 059.1 067.21 069.1 076.7 083.1 095.9 096.8 097.2 102 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Deep loving, dark thinking, In endless deep Deeper But still assail the deeper firmament. Unless in deeper love both are combined; And deeper fires, burning, burning, burning, Nightward and deeper. Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, Deep-Knotted They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; Deeply Deeply the folded roses The inner beauty I more deeply care So deeply dark and fair Defaced I hear them in the rubble of defaced land Defeat And find defeat ere I have much begun; Deific We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: Delicate A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in Delicately Jades exquisite, delicately carved ivory, Delight For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, Let us give over ourselves to delight, And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; Pain, and a choral delight; Delight be withholden? I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. Delights Delights of Ispahan. Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Delirium The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, Dell For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. Delve Dig and delve So dig and delve, Delver’s What shall reward the delver’s toil Demented The poppy yielded you demented dreams, Demon Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, Demonic Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, 098.6 123.14 133.67 050.14 051.25 051.52 064.4 122.10 084.6 109.5 114.11 127.6 131.5 050.6 112.13 129.13 096.14 003.18 004.8 004.51 007.8 007.52 015.12 021.4 033.32 043.2 060.12 096.70 117.14 096.12 096.52 003.25 043.26 101.21 040.8 143.1 143.9 038.11 017.13 045.7 061.7 D 103 That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. 090.8 Deny Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? 119.11 Departed see Wind-Departed Depths Descending into midnight depths that lurked 011.19 I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths 011.22 In the depths of gloomy murk: 047.38 Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; 070.7 And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. 127.10 Derrick Till with derrick they capped him, 145.3 Descending Descending into midnight depths that lurked 011.19 Descends For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, 070.9 Desert Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, 086.6 Alone protruded from the desert sand, 093.4 Deserted Seaweed fills deserted lanes; 047.23 Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. 131.8 Deserts The dried-up seas, the deserts drear. 010.19 Desert’s You drift along the desert’s burning sands; 017.6 Design In my design; 046.44 The ever fresh design of your own fashion. 051.28 And naked lay the true design, the trick. 121.12 Desire The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; 003.6 The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. 003.11 Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking 003.19 Thy body fevered with love’s desire, 004.7 No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, 007.55 But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, 007.61 Of dead desire. 013.8 To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? 015.20 He seeks to allay the old desire, 018.10 Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, 043.1 Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, 067.49 To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, 096.100 Nor I desire it if it held not you; 115.12 Desired The phantom that so greatly I desired 036.53 Desired of many but achieved by few. 068.12 Desires But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, 051.19 Weary of all desires grown monotonous, 096.7 Desiring Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; 003.30 And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, 096.32 Desolate Desolate, lonely, and far, 001.7 For ever and ever and desolate, 004.23 104 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Desolate, lonely, and far Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, Desolation The desolation tomblike, sere, Of desolation and the livid dead, Despair Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. A giant shape part human, part despair, Despairing Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall Despairs Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. Despite Of modes that will not match despite your pains. Destined Now was I destined after all to die, Destiny My destiny, and found what men can never guess; Destroy But a moment will come and death destroy For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. Destroyed But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. Destroying There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Destruction Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, Develops A glow that develops and flows from the inner being Device And all your days, and mine, a vain device. Devil Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Goddess or devil or only human, Devoid Devoid of mirth, devoid of feeling; Devotion Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, Devour Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Devouring And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. Dew Petals tremulous with dew at dawn The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids I am the fleeting dew, Diadems Strange wondrous jewels and diadems Strange wondrous jewels and diadems Diamonds I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, Did What did it matter a thousand years ago 063.7 085.7 010.18 017.3 006.20 089.11 015.35 088.9 074.8 117.8 085.1 013.10 004.33 008.12 007.52 043.14 017.17 110.3 118.14 022.4 022.8 022.12 140.11 128.34 096.80 043.28 082.14 091.14 004.58 044.6 066.1 133.29 012.24 067.24 096.19 026.1 D Didn’t Die Died Dies Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? For green corpses he did lust, What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? What goal, what new companion did I seek? For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard I scarce could know the evil that I did; Where Death in death all things did not immerse. And waited, wondered, though I did not know... Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, And she didn’t mind, Of flowers that die, Though we die. Thou shalt die, Must die; Beauty and Love and Life must die, Even the least. Beauty must die. For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; Die, with the leaves that drift Die, with Beauty that dies Their purple vision fade and die, For all things die, but they die most regretful That flowered not, and all things weep to die, No ears to hear her footsteps die away. Why do the mandrakes fear to die? Now was I destined after all to die, As of a lost and hungry child. Then die And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging They know that it will take me years to die, We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; I am nothing as I die, And when I die, must be enscrolled That once a poet lived and loved and died, Died upon birth. All things died in my black might, From heat and plague as they died, Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, For silence unto silence died away. And I, and all that phantom city, died. To every branch. The tree had long since died, I dreamed the waters of the world had died, Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. I only know she died in Mytilene. Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; Is the voice of Beauty that dies. Die, with Beauty that dies The mortal flesh that dies? And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies 105 027.5 027.8 046.13 059.9 072.9 074.3 106.11 107.8 122.8 138.12 144.4 001.6 003.40 004.1 004.22 004.29 004.34 007.42 009.17 009.19 030.54 051.15 051.16 053.13 056.12 085.1 089.7 097.7 103.3 112.6 133.56 137.25 026.6 039.6 046.7 048.22 059.15 080.14 086.14 093.10 095.1 095.4 099.14 107.14 122.2 001.14 009.19 012.49 062.7 106 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Is the dream as it dies. Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Differed Differed so, each from each, and this one more Dig Dig and delve So dig and delve, Dim see also Moon-Dim Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, What are the dim dread images that bind I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Sleep the dim night away O Love, the world so shadowy and dim We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, Dimension see also Four-Dimension Expound a learned fourth dimension Dimensioned see Four-Dimensioned Dimly Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, Dine To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. Dirge And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Dirges That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. Disagree With all things disagree, Disarrays Arrays and disarrays the house contains, Discover And truths I could not otherwise discover. Discovering Discovering there an equal leaden hue, Discoverlessly Discoverlessly far, Disease’s As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, Disdainful And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled Disgusting “Masher. Disgusting.” Disposes As the unknown force disposes Disputed Not a thing disputed the lordly worm Dissemble We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble Dissolution’s In dissolution’s rot. Around, Dissolve For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints Dissolved With their faces dissolved and deathly heads 063.14 096.85 115.7 143.1 143.9 007.29 011.16 059.15 083.5 089.1 101.29 109.7 110.9 112.7 138.13 127.7 087.12 062.7 080.2 096.63 117.6 120.12 069.11 127.16 070.2 024.13 139.14 133.61 057.11 003.31 054.20 007.42 076.13 062.3 D Distance In the distance sank the coast in the dank From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, Distant A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— So long, so far, so distant have you flown Wherefor, solution distant as a star, The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Ditched Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, Ditty Who burped a remarkable ditty, Divan I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Dividing I must, for it arose, its mass dividing Divine Most lovely, half satanic, half divine, Divinely Of pagany, divinely young Apollo, Divinity Where legend prophesied divinity, Do Only now do we live. I do not know. There is an ache that fills Where asphodels do grow. Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, So little, yet to do so well, Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste Why do the mandrakes fear to die? I can not find, nor do I seem to place And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Now wherefor do you make this larger room I listen, but I do not hear them fall, What do I want? This do I want. Only do we who knew you feel the source, Does The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? Dolorous And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, Domain I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain That her domain has overrun. That enters her wide domain. Domain I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain In my domain alone you’ll capture Dominions And surge of falling flame of far dominions, In shadow-ruled dominions darkly fated Don She liked to don herself in raiment Done Our task was done. Her vigil never will be done: In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice If this were done to Minnesota, Don’t “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” Doom Lie only shards of that dread doom Apocalyptic prophet of our doom, And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled 107 048.9 096.91 015.47 037.1 050.7 096.94 142.8 145.2 096.8 089.8 027.2 051.44 037.12 004.70 027.9 041.4 042.7 042.10 051.5 056.12 077.5 077.11 101.11 101.29 118.9 122.13 123.16 123.20 146.8 134.19 007.8 096.29 012.5 055.12 060.16 067.5 067.48 034.8 036.51 128.5 035.8 055.18 129.6 138.35 139.2 010.15 017.10 024.13 108 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei That brought to Mirtylon its doom, What total purpose wrought such total doom; Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... What sense of overhanging doom has made Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. All night I heard the cadences of doom And DOOM had fallen on the universe. Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, I am doom that all dooms follow, Doomed Swimming through Atlantis doomed; Dooms Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. I am doom that all dooms follow, Door Progressing slowly underneath the door The door must open, showing why the hue On long, metallic clang, the brazen door I found no door, and when all hope lay dead Doors And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, Thus I close my doors Dost All things that thou dost love, Doth For song, not she, doth gain. That doth the icon and the dream inherit, Doubt And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily Doubting Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, Dowers Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Down I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths When down the hillside came a long, low crying, For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. I peered far down the final future ages, When the night came down again. As we strode down the streets of Tyre. Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, The world of which no tale is handed down. Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave She often made the first down payment, Down the far closure of the valley, sky, Downward And twist their sinuous downward course— Doze Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. Dozes A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. Drag And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, Dragged They dragged me back with never pause for rest. Drained Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Drapery With its drapery hiding all wholly, 030.18 036.12 077.13 083.7 089.14 094.2 107.4 127.13 133.22 047.28 070.14 133.22 078.2 078.13 081.2 088.7 024.13 050.4 052.7 012.41 041.16 051.48 050.8 096.62 124.2 115.8 011.22 015.3 022.11 029.3 034.1 034.9 036.33 048.8 049.7 060.1 068.14 090.3 128.7 147.6 038.10 138.26 101.13 096.29 086.5 096.52 043.35 D 109 Drapes Their gentle drapes enfold. 041.12 Draught Lips parting and closing over the draught her 129.2 Draw Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, 025.1 Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. 025.12 But could not move or even draw one breath: 093.13 Drawings Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, 006.1 Dread Lie only shards of that dread doom 010.15 All the rottenness, I dread; 054.12 And languid, warming into life; no dread 075.6 What are the dim dread images that bind 083.5 Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, 088.3 Dreaded As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, 070.2 Dreadful With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, 029.2 With all the dreadful cerements of the grave 090.2 Dream see also Nightmare-Dream, Opium-Dream Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure 006.3 Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. 006.24 Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. 008.14 Dream, with the flowers dreaming, 009.9 Dream, with the brown grass withering 009.11 Whose dream of old is gone 014.13 Before the greater dream whose dawn 014.14 For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, 028.11 Of a dream supernal. 033.16 The still-eluding dream. 036.48 And still for this one dream all else forsaking 036.59 Like a drinker of chloral I dream, 043.10 And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. 044.8 Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly 051.9 A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. 051.14 And to no futile dream of death aspires, 051.20 That doth the icon and the dream inherit, 051.48 Is the dream as it dies. 063.14 065.19 She will dream as the night wanes slowly, And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; 067.32 I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, 070.10 And melancholy, dream away the afternoon 096.56 And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, 096.59 The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow 096.101 Dream of forgetful day, 109.6 So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. 110.16 We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: 112.14 We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, 112.15 Content to know the image of the dream, 113.11 Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, 127.7 The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; 130.2 The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; 130.18 110 Dreamed A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. I dreamed the waters of the world had died, Dreamed-Of We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: Dreamer A dreamer in eternity, We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: Dreamers Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers Dream-Form And every dream-form glowing Dreamful In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; Dreaming Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee Dream, with the flowers dreaming, My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring On Atlantis dreaming, dreaming All her dreaming, raptured face is white, Over the dreaming grass; Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list Dreaming of Her. Tall candles there were dreaming Dreamland Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. Dreamlands Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. Dreamless I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; Dreamlikely Then dreamlikely they uttered Dreams Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee DEATH: I offer thee such dreams All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; Age-old dreams. The poppy yielded you demented dreams, Enchanted me with dreams that weave; I brought him dreams of eternal night, He had dreams and thoughts of just She walks with dust and dreams. She dreams of fear. Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves Death: I offer you such dreams And dreams that can not be. 138.26 141.2 141.18 007.39 007.40 095.1 112.14 014.12 112.14 034.4 109.29 101.2 008.3 009.9 036.31 047.17 058.3 065.2 101.9 101.15 136.3 113.14 006.24 071.11 015.42 045.17 008.3 012.1 013.6 015.32 017.13 042.5 046.5 046.15 053.16 058.4 060.8 067.1 096.6 D And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, And dreams become the real. The real world dreams, Romantic dreams, illusions, poetry, Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, We listened to these strange tall dreams Dream-Winds The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, Drear The days are drear, The dried-up seas, the deserts drear. Dresser The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Drew And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Dried-Up The dried-up seas, the deserts drear. Drift Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, Die, with the leaves that drift You drift along the desert’s burning sands; Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, You drift upon the moonlight hovering near Grown faint, the winds drift slowly And you will never know what years drift by. Drifted A glowing form, it drifted on a course Drifting A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force Drifts That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, Drink The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Drinker Like a drinker of chloral I dream, Drinking Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! 111 096.28 096.32 096.70 109.19 109.20 120.13 127.13 136.9 096.101 099.4 113.6 002.25 010.19 129.9 074.11 113.4 145.5 010.19 001.12 009.17 017.6 063.12 077.3 109.9 118.4 088.4 015.47 045.14 060.12 147.11 020.12 044.3 022.1 027.7 097.2 098.1 098.2 098.3 098.4 098.5 098.6 098.7 098.8 043.10 098.7 112 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Drinks She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; 066.13 Drip The janitors would drip with knowledge, 138.20 Dripping The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. 017.8 Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old 054.24 There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed 106.1 Driven Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, 036.39 Droop Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop 011.12 Drooping Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? 056.2 Drop And think the words they drop are jewels. 138.2 Dropped Before I dropped away, for I was free— 079.13 Drown And in the waters saw my own face drown, 011.24 Drowned Drowning as willow-fingers drowned, deep—deep— 011.25 Lies upon the dead drowned men. 047.36 Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned 054.19 All it would find was a plump drowned rat 057.15 And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. 071.14 The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; 095.11 Drowning Drowning as willow-fingers drowned, deep—deep— 011.25 And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. 056.8 Drowse Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. 138.26 Drowsy The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, 015.2 To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, 051.51 Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, 096.58 And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, 096.88 Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list 101.9 Drowsyhead And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, 096.28 Drugged I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, 043.26 Druid’s It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, 110.15 Drunk And drunk a wine of amethyst 030.19 I have drunk at the fountains 033.3 I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; 043.2 Drunken 007.27 And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, 008.2 And body to body, drunken forms were swaying 015.39 A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— 023.1 Of a glory I have drunken, 033.21 Each drunken reveller has long since gone; 040.2 Wine of life and of death I have drunken, 043.29 Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list 101.9 Dry The dry dead leaves 002.15 Dual Then live! Live in this dual love, partake 051.29 Of the dual flower that alone endures; 051.30 D Due Dull Dumb For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. Dusk A gray dusk mists the air From dawn to dusk her white sides feel Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Dusks While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks Dusky And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? Out of a dusky corner came the stare And from a dusky corner came the stare Dust see also Space-Dust As it stirs the dust To dust and ash will turn. Yield his body unto dust, Remember the dust. In the stirless dust; They gazed on stars that now are dust, Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten Of naked hearts, and dust For sick flames and the crawling dust, Or purple, dear to children of the dust, She walks with dust and dreams. The dust of centuries lies on her head; Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping I am dust in cosmic outways resting, Dutch For she paid half, when they went Dutch, Duty Duty, in her lips caressing! Dwarfs Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, Dwell They dwell in dying Mandrikor They dwell in wasteland and in night. Upon the ruined planet dwell Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, Only growths and fishes dwell Where sea-friends dwell, Dwelled Here at the house you dwelled Dwellers I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, Dwelling Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling Dwelt I have dwelt in the palace Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; 113 019.7 007.45 004.68 026.3 036.28 137.24 053.6 060.17 134.4 031.7 027.4 072.5 104.5 002.23 004.9 004.46 005.6 009.20 030.33 036.7 039.14 046.14 051.2 053.16 099.2 107.6 112.9 133.24 128.19 100.8 012.21 030.32 067.21 125.6 010.1 010.5 010.21 042.7 047.37 060.22 132.1 095.10 015.15 033.7 072.7 112.6 114 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Dwindling Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered Dying And the song of Beauty for ever dying They dwell in dying Mandrikor Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, Her face has watched the dying sun. For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. Dynastic We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, 036.9 004.61 010.1 015.1 055.8 085.14 112.7 E Each The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings Each drunken reveller has long since gone; From each of us he took his joy, What though one kingdom each of you forsake, And rotten in each swelling pore, Each vespertime, he wearies of the view But phantoms; life and death part each of other; That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred With signs unreadable, on each the shard Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying And burning eyes along each limb. It spun Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Differed so, each from each, and this one more She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. I am the master of each living thing, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, The golden poppy folds and each eternal I Each pedagogue, a happy oyster, Why, there each young M.A. would go to, With each lesson came complete Eagerness An eagerness; and pain upon his features Ear The listening ear; its tones are softly heard Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. Ears No ears to hear her footsteps die away. I’m quite as good as ears to asses; Earth On the dead earth; The earth could not contain We left her only to the waiting earth that gave I watched on earth the littler things around; And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, In your steps on the wakened ways of earth Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, To coffin. earth, the dead. Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. 013.3 040.2 046.37 051.31 054.49 069.9 070.12 074.6 074.7 085.11 091.12 092.5 115.7 129.12 133.2 133.3 134.1 134.7 134.13 134.16 138.24 138.36 140.3 059.6 028.6 028.14 053.13 137.8 009.10 014.16 035.11 036.44 044.3 051.39 051.40 051.45 051.54 054.11 054.21 068.5 069.7 116 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! For sunlit earth: Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, I love you for the charm earth gave to you, The lands no traveller ever found on earth; I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. I rule the earth Not on earth nor anywhere Nothing on earth can bother me, Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? Earthly Purer than earthly creatures’, Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; Of earthly ecstasy. In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping Heard legends not by earthly voices told, And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, Earth’s And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. Ease The twilight brought no ease from the hot I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, Eaten My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. Eaves About the eaves, Sea-tides ebb and flow; Ebb Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: Ebon Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Ebony The idol in my shrine of ebony, The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, And polished ebony, Eccentric I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; Echo And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, And only echo answer a low call. Echoing And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, Like the ghost of an echoing note Eclipse And I would let it in complete eclipse Ecstasies Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies Ecstasy A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, 098.1 109.4 116.7 116.9 116.12 124.14 133.42 133.65 142.2 147.7 032.6 034.4 066.13 096.66 119.4 122.11 124.3 059.8 048.13 124.9 105.14 002.13 047.7 060.3 112.2 011.13 011.14 008.7 086.13 096.15 013.17 096.92 122.12 062.6 063.3 115.13 015.44 028.10 003.10 003.30 007.8 007.47 007.56 008.2 015.13 018.7 021.3 043.22 E 117 In ecstasy to reap 054.37 Of inner ecstasy and exaltation 068.11 With bright-eyed ecstasy, exultant wrath, 082.13 Of earthly ecstasy. 096.66 Eden Yet would it be no Eden to entice. 115.11 Edge I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. 011.9 Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge 011.13 Eel To capture an errant eel 060.15 Eerie In eerie borderlands I vainly waited 036.49 I thought I heard the eerie 045.9 Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, 070.5 And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. 141.20 Eery And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. 130.20 Effaced Until your birthsite was become effaced. 037.7 Egypt The lips of Egypt, Troy, 067.31 Eidotrope Her eyes of eidotrope, 127.11 Eight see Pieces-of-Eight Elder The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, 007.47 Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. 024.4 She rules a realm decayed from elder days, 127.17 The elder gods have promised a day of returning 141.5 And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. 141.8 Elders Their elders have promised them a day of returning, 130.5 And ashes consume what the elders condemn. 130.8 The little gods will answer their elders and rise. 130.12 Eldritch The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; 086.11 Elements The elements their four-fold essence send you, 051.41 Elizabeth Elizabeth Arden, Walska, and Rubenstein; 129.11 Else And still for this one dream all else forsaking 036.59 Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? 043.4 All colours else were wan and tame, 046.23 All else is still the realm around, 053.17 109.39 Where nothing else remains. Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. 116.8 Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. 137.24 Eluding see Still-Eluding Ely “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 ’Em Or any other words to jar ’em; 137.12 Are things that never ought to bore ’em. 137.22 They paid him to seduce ’em! 140.12 Embrace We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy 003.27 Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold 027.5 Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace 070.13 I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; 101.27 118 Embraces A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, Emerald Emerald green; Emeralds I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, Emerging Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, Emily Emily Post, and thieves in state; Empires Of buried kings, and empires perilous; Employ There is a language I would fain employ, Empress An empress regnant in an empty tomb— Emptiness And of no emptiness is unforgetful. An emptiness not knowing you are there. Empty While empty cities rot away Monotony of life an empty show? Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Not always empty is a shell, With empty fanes. How strange. How strangely empty is the room. Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, An empress regnant in an empty tomb— I am the empty brain Empurpled Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. Enchanted Enchanted me with dreams that weave; And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. Enchantment Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering Oh enchantment that entices, Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, Encrusted And weird encrusted forms on every side. Encysted Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. Encysted from the sight of other eyes; End Shall lose all Beauty in the end, Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, Unto the end I worship and adore; But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, And end, there too I sought. All his great love will end in me, As if there never were an end in store. With weary steps to the old, original end. 114.7 007.11 046.12 096.19 125.22 051.10 142.5 026.11 028.1 127.18 051.21 118.8 010.11 026.4 029.3 042.16 047.26 077.14 090.3 096.32 127.18 133.18 071.8 042.5 044.8 051.27 111.8 006.21 033.39 096.89 095.8 051.56 119.2 004.11 007.57 007.58 007.61 036.16 046.43 078.7 112.12 E Endeavor Like cardinal numbers adding without end; Till I end What end smaller Finding that life from end to end And past the winding river’s end you gaze, With olden dead endeavor all erased, From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; And years of striving in one moment ended. Feet are ended in a fen— Ending For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, This never ending night of mounting pain, Endless We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy In endless repose; Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, Upon an endless path forever going I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, Who follows an endless stream Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear The endless silence of the endless dead; The endless silence of the endless dead; The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. I love you for the realms of endless view, In endless deep Endlessly Endlessly, So endlessly, so wearily, you paced Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, Ends I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Endures No love endures if love be only passion Of the dual flower that alone endures; Enemy A savage, indestructible enemy. Enfold Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? Their gentle drapes enfold. Engines Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled Engirt Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. English And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, Engulfed Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; Enigmatic Enigmatic loveliness of enigmatic figures, Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; Ennobled Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Ended 119 115.2 133.45 133.63 142.7 147.4 051.6 015.41 051.7 126.15 007.15 084.13 003.27 009.2 011.4 036.61 043.2 057.12 064.3 068.1 081.10 096.73 099.6 099.6 103.14 116.11 133.67 004.82 037.5 079.9 070.10 096.95 051.22 051.30 082.8 027.8 041.12 048.19 089.14 138.39 094.11 006.13 006.14 081.12 146.5 120 Ennui A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Ennui alone. And old ennui. With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; But ennui still is mine. Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, I only find more ennui in philosophies, Enough Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, Oh love, it is enough that I may be Who plainly wasn’t old enough? Enraptured I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. Enriching Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. Enscrolled And when I die, must be enscrolled Enshroud The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; Ensorcelled Her queer, ensorcelled eyes Enter Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. Entered Where I entered the traces Enters That enters her wide domain. Entice Yet would it be no Eden to entice. Entices Oh enchantment that entices, Entity A sentient entity from hell, alive. Enwrapped Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: Equal Its equal can confess. Discovering there an equal leaden hue, Erased With olden dead endeavor all erased, Erasing I am night erasing day, Ere Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? And find defeat ere I have much begun; Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. Erect Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. Errant To capture an errant eel Error And every error, he would single-ish! Errors Were errors that have lost their hold on me. Escape Never will Beauty escape the grave, 013.4 013.28 096.2 096.24 096.40 096.61 096.58 114.13 138.34 003.1 003.3 028.14 146.9 137.25 059.14 127.1 007.12 033.15 060.16 115.11 033.39 088.14 106.4 032.10 069.11 051.6 133.55 031.8 043.27 043.28 050.6 097.1 097.2 097.3 097.4 092.10 060.15 138.40 120.14 004.36 E Can escape to tell of muted grief. Around me, solid walls of no escape, For my escape I knew what I must pay: And in recurring deaths escape them never. Escapes In search of closed escapes. Especially Especially when their knees are pretty. Essence The elements their four-fold essence send you, The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! Et “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; Eternal The sea’s eternal mystery, And the suns eternal, The secret of eternal avatars. As the stars are, my love is eternal. In night’s eternal pall. I brought him dreams of eternal night, Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying All things are symbols of eternal death— We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, The golden poppy folds and each eternal I And win the prof’s eternal pity, Eternities Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain Eternity A dreamer in eternity, Eternity between you and your haven; And the worm is king for eternity, Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? Eunuchs Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: Euphony Whose perfect euphony would be as clear Eve White poppy of the crimson eve— Walpurgis Eve. Upon the crimson eve, Even Even as Song and Life and Love, Even as one who loves thee, Love, Even as I. Even as I, Oh Myrrhiline, Even the least. Beauty must die. But even thou, Oh Myrrhiline, And even so, Myrrhiline, Shall even as my lost days be foredone, Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, Still farther where not even stars were flaring I can not even sigh 121 006.12 078.9 086.3 087.14 045.16 138.8 051.41 129.16 137.27 020.10 033.14 036.4 043.23 045.12 046.5 054.21 066.10 085.11 102.5 112.15 134.8 134.16 138.7 070.6 014.12 037.8 057.19 072.10 073.7 147.7 096.22 028.12 042.2 061.12 109.2 004.2 004.3 004.4 004.10 004.34 004.41 004.47 031.12 031.13 036.29 054.6 122 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Where sat an even greater, stranger being, But could not move or even draw one breath: With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, I hear them when I am not even questing Evening Evening to night, and night to afterglow, Ever For ever and ever and desolate, And the song of Beauty for ever dying All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; I worship thee and ever worship more. All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. For ever his heart is filled with yearning, But only and ever his flesh is burning, For ever mounting past the realm of light, Some thing I find not though I ever seek. I know this all I ever will be knowing: Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond The ever fresh design of your own fashion. Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, For ever dead. For ever dead. For ever fled. For ever spread. For ever dead. For ever dead, dead, dead. Ever the orb’s fantastic glare Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, As deathless as ever a worm can be, With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, Increasing, spreading more and ever more I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever And all that ever will be known, is Death. Stranger than ever came Radiant and ever-freshening, ever new, The lands no traveller ever found on earth; For who could ever be a prof. Ever-Freshening Radiant and ever-freshening, ever new, Everlasting Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. 076.4 093.13 096.2 111.12 125.9 131.11 147.13 004.23 004.61 007.39 007.42 007.60 013.5 013.31 014.30 018.9 018.11 024.9 027.11 036.63 043.16 050.10 050.11 051.28 051.58 054.60 054.62 054.64 054.66 054.68 054.69 055.13 057.13 057.14 057.18 068.5 078.6 087.13 102.20 109.31 115.10 116.12 138.33 115.10 014.7 146.9 E Everlastingly And conquest everlastingly beyond, Evermore Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, Every Every youth and maiden must Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: An unknown golden tongue where every word And every sound a thing of lyric joy. Of every age and every sky. When time had ceased, when every world was riven, And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; And every forward step a weary strain. To every branch. The tree had long since died, And weird encrusted forms on every side. And every dream-form glowing Though every day were filled with benison Though every hour were rich with a great store On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand And every prof, a second Firkins, And every error, he would single-ish! Everything Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily And fair seems everything. And everything was red and strange and mad; It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended Everywhere The presences pass everywhere Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; And everywhere the women flinging Amidst great cobwebs hanging everywhere And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. Shimmering everywhere. There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, Evetide Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer Evil Evil and good. What evil source your awful scarlet flood? And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, What shape of evil? What its foul intent? I scarce could know the evil that I did; Evince Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Exacting Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— Exaltation 123 050.9 006.19 004.45 013.11 013.21 028.2 028.4 030.56 036.37 067.32 091.4 093.10 095.8 109.29 115.3 115.5 131.4 134.2 138.29 138.40 096.62 096.90 106.10 111.9 010.7 013.11 029.12 040.1 049.23 072.1 090.12 092.1 095.4 101.5 104.1 105.5 096.77 003.32 017.2 061.11 091.2 106.11 117.12 050.12 124 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of inner ecstasy and exaltation Excellent Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Except Except to blind you;— Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly A paragon, except in virtue, Believed no truth except what pleased her; “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” Excess Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; Exhume Exhume forgotten platitudes Existence I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; Exists That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. Exotic Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, Experience Till acids of experience undeceive She said she lacked experience; Expound Expound a learned fourth dimension Exquisite Jades exquisite, delicately carved ivory, How much more exquisite to hear me cry External For things external, but of higher worth, The artistry external, and I find Exultant With bright-eyed ecstasy, exultant wrath, Eye Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, I can not close an eye, Stares with an eye she can not shun. The leering of a huge and sightless eye. The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, Eyed see Bright-Eyed, Sad-Eyed, Somber-Eyed Eyeless That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. Eyelids Her eyelids vaguely stir; She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids Eyes see also Sorceress-Eyes Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? For him whose sightless eyes Over his loins his deep eyes rove. Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying Thy purple eyes, Valerian, Thine eyes were at the avatar Thine eyes were old when God was born, Valerian, thine eyes were sick Thine eyes were stricken when they saw Thine eyes, Valerian, are full Thy purple haunted eyes are mad And once thy purple eyes went blind 068.11 117.12 033.38 051.9 128.25 128.30 139.7 013.25 138.15 013.29 112.16 006.1 121.8 128.38 138.13 096.14 103.6 116.10 117.13 082.13 006.14 054.4 055.4 083.14 085.5 133.53 095.14 058.6 066.1 003.14 004.6 012.48 014.28 018.4 019.5 020.9 030.1 030.5 030.9 030.13 030.21 030.25 030.30 030.41 E Eyes’ 125 Valerian! Thine eyes are filled 030.45 Valerian! Thine eyes are old 030.49 Valerian! Thine eyes shall shut, 030.53 Of thine eyes holdeth me. 032.2 In your eyes, there is rapture 033.18 But the eyes have no vision, 033.33 And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, 034.16 My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring 036.31 Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; 038.14 Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage 039.13 His sunken eyes could only see 046.11 For his mad eyes; 046.20 Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide 053.2 There are no eyes to see, 053.11 And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head 057.7 In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes 059.5 Sometimes her gleaming eyes 060.6 Their wild eyes glare. 061.8 While its pale eyes kept watching patiently 073.3 Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, 073.7 Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. 073.11 Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: 073.12 And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow 075.5 A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, 076.5 The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, 079.12 With eyes of golden fury; while a score 081.6 They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; 084.2 They gave me back my eyes so I could peer 087.9 The face a group of eyes above a blur 089.12 That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. 090.8 And burning eyes along each limb. It spun 091.12 The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. 096.38 096.44 The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know 099.5 They left to me my eyes, so I could stare 103.9 And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. 110.4 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face 114.2 Encysted from the sight of other eyes; 119.2 And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, 120.2 Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, 124.12 Her queer, ensorcelled eyes 127.1 Her eyes of eidotrope, 127.11 Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; 129.15 And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: 130.10 And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, 141.10 Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. 029.8 F Fabled Fabulous Face Faced Faces It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Where the fabled roses bloomed. 027.12 041.3 047.31 Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; More fabulous than all the gems of fame, And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time, More fabulous than all the gems of fame. And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Thy lovely face uplifted now, And in the waters saw my own face drown, The face that haunts thy memory? Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; And of his face, there was no vestige seen, So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, Thy face is aureoled Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? One old familiar face I found The face was lost and I had guessed One old familiar face I found. Her face has watched the dying sun. All her dreaming, raptured face is white, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids The face that haunts your heart and mind. It was my own; my own face showed that hue, And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; The face a group of eyes above a blur And of its face no vestige could be seen, There is no picture of her dear dead face, My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face see Web-Faced Witching, haunted, haunting, mysterious faces 008.10 012.23 028.13 057.1 067.23 129.8 003.2 003.13 004.18 011.24 012.47 019.5 029.5 029.10 032.3 041.3 043.3 043.28 049.15 049.18 049.21 055.8 058.3 058.11 066.3 067.47 073.5 077.4 082.2 089.12 090.5 099.10 105.14 114.2 006.15 F And still to flushed and heated faces burning, And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses To be, I thought to find in nearer faces With their faces dissolved and deathly heads Facile Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile Fade Their purple vision fade and die, Mine the love that can fade not or falter, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Faded The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, And all the glory faded from the skies. Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Fades Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies Pass, with pleasure that fades But never changes, never fades, Like a mist that fades into sodden skies Fading And in the fading vision of my sleep Faëry Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, Faëry’s The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Fail A golden throat, a golden song that fail— I saw I still must fail. I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, Failed Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled Failing And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing Fails A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes Fain There is a language I would fain employ, Faint More ghostly than the faint starlight. There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly Grown faint, the winds drift slowly So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. Fainter Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; Faintest And its faintest breath Faintly And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; Fair Have perished in ruinous gardens fair Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses So fair she is that beauty hath no graces While maidens lovely, smiling, fair, Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. Make you fair for admiring. 127 015.29 020.3 036.47 062.3 096.82 030.54 043.19 043.28 007.47 034.17 097.1 001.13 009.15 053.7 063.13 095.12 113.5 130.3 130.19 141.3 141.19 021.7 036.56 085.13 048.19 015.5 101.14 028.1 010.8 044.1 051.9 109.9 110.16 094.13 002.17 096.92 122.2 004.59 006.18 012.51 020.1 020.3 041.1 049.11 051.9 051.39 051.42 096.36 128 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And fair seems everything. 096.90 And flowers fair as moly 109.13 And fair things yet more fair, 109.23 So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. 110.16 So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace 114.3 With you. and you so beautiful and fair. 114.14 How fair you were, if you were only fair, 116.3 Your imperfections are as fair to me 117.9 And it may be that you will find it fair; 118.6 Of daggers, fair appearances retreat 121.11 So deeply dark and fair 127.6 Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair 134.5 Fairer And I, who long for fairer melodies 028.9 Fairest To the star that is fairest; 033.12 You are the fairest of the lovely whom 116.1 Fairly “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 Faith The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum 102.18 From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe 121.6 No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining 124.6 The true believer makes his own faith all along 134.20 Faithful The faithful, with far chaunting. 096.78 Fall see also Rock-Fall Have seen the fall of many kings, 030.10 They saw the mighty Atthla fall 030.37 We buried her in the solemn fall 035.1 That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, 060.9 Blown petals that fall, 063.6 But she, in decadent fall, 065.23 Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, 069.12 To fall amid colossal precipices. 079.14 And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. 082.14 That swiftly toward me now began to fall, 088.13 092.7 Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, 096.91 Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! 098.8 The fall of footsteps light and pantherine 122.1 I listen, but I do not hear them fall, 122.13 Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall 127.3 Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. 127.5 I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, 131.13 Or twilight’s fall 143.5 Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze 147.2 Fallen And DOOM had fallen on the universe. 107.4 Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. 107.14 And the fallen sweet clover, 123.9 Falling Falling on the window-pane 136.2 Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling 147.5 Falls Till darkness falls—it never will— 055.17 She falls, 060.23 F Falseness Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer Till softly falls away Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon 129 096.77 096.81 096.85 What they are told, the falseness never find 121.7 And knowing that my quest at last must falter 036.15 Mine the love that can fade not or falter, 043.19 Fame More fabulous than all the gems of fame, 012.23 More fabulous than all the gems of fame. 067.23 Familiar One old familiar face I found 049.15 One old familiar face I found. 049.21 Fancy The changing fancy and the careful rows 117.7 Fanes Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes 010.2 With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, 034.7 With empty fanes. 047.26 Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, 051.10 The image and the fanes 109.38 Fantastic Ever the orb’s fantastic glare 055.13 Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere 092.1 Far Desolate, lonely, and far, 001.7 Alone and far, 014.10 Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture 015.9 And wander in far lands and seas, alone, 025.3 Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. 028.8 And surge of falling flame of far dominions, 034.8 We left her far more quiet body lying there: 035.7 I sought it in far lands of timeless travel 036.1 To seek some image far behind some portal 036.19 I peered far down the final future ages, 036.33 So long, so far, so distant have you flown 037.1 There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, 044.1 And its glory far was known, 047.14 That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, 050.5 Desolate, lonely, and far 063.7 The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, 066.9 I still have far to go, it’s late. 067.52 Death: However far you go, I wait. 067.53 Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace 070.13 In that far, future time where I was fleeing 076.1 Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, 079.9 Though they who tortured me were far behind, 085.9 The faithful, with far chaunting. 096.78 Discoverlessly far, 127.16 Who came from near and came from far 140.7 Down the far closure of the valley, sky, 147.6 Farewell Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, 146.1 Far-Flung A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces 111.1 Farther And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. 036.25 Falter 130 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And farther still when life was yet to come, Still farther back before the stars were spawning Still farther where not even stars were flaring Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, Stretched farther than horizons. I could see However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, There always was farther to go. Farthest Nothing of farthest or nearest, Fashion The ever fresh design of your own fashion. I answer—if they love me in my fashion, Fashions Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, Fast Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. For in the talons I was fast immured. That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... Fastened I too was fastened on that tree of death. Fastness Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Fat All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came Fate But we turned too late and we knew our fate Like me uncertain of their final fate Fated In shadow-ruled dominions darkly fated Fateful Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, Fathomless Within the pool so fathomless and dark. Faun She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Favored Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise Fear And of that thing there came to me a fear Why do the mandrakes fear to die? She dreams of fear. And of that thing swept over me a fear Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining Fearful And fearful regions of a nameless fright, As fearful as the haunts of the insane. Whose source could only, be some fearful shape Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? Feast For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Features The beauty of thy features, An eagerness; and pain upon his features Wildly, wildly, round features mandragoral Fed On the nectar of love I have fed, For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; Had I, although I knew on what it fed, 036.26 036.27 036.29 085.7 093.2 134.14 144.5 123.17 051.28 119.12 116.7 055.16 079.8 092.14 093.14 059.10 054.13 057.4 057.13 057.23 128.15 048.3 087.3 036.51 070.5 011.20 066.3 119.7 029.9 056.12 058.4 090.9 091.6 124.6 025.8 070.3 078.11 083.8 015.34 040.7 032.5 059.6 068.4 043.30 048.5 054.13 075.7 F Feebly Feel That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. I only sighed to feel them play I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, I feel the worms that leap From dawn to dusk her white sides feel And of my presence, I could feel no sign Only do we who knew you feel the source, Feeling Devoid of mirth, devoid of feeling; Feet At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Six feet deep I lie; Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned Corruption. Six feet deep Six feet deep. Unto my feet a little trickle crept The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, Feet are ended in a fen— Fell Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. It fell in parts, and I was part of it. Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Fell Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; Felt When I felt through me spread the germ Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, Fen Feet are ended in a fen— Fence The cat on the fence, and world conditions, Fen-Fires The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Fermented Fermented in a wizard’s tomb. Fertile Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Festering My corpse was once a festering sore Festful Their festful riot in my rotting heap. Festival And celebrate our festival. That play for pagan festival. Fetter Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true Fever Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; Fevered Thy body fevered with love’s desire, With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, 131 095.14 054.30 054.35 054.36 060.17 122.3 146.8 128.34 003.21 054.2 054.19 054.32 054.34 078.1 091.10 092.6 124.2 126.15 007.6 010.16 073.14 091.7 128.22 054.26 072.11 076.13 104.11 122.10 126.15 142.4 056.11 130.4 130.20 141.4 141.20 030.20 069.6 054.48 054.41 049.4 067.37 113.8 019.5 101.17 004.7 026.8 101.1 132 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Feverish Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; 003.14 Fever-Kisses Love’s beauty and love’s torment and love’s fever-kisses, 007.21 Feverous Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, 043.1 Fevers see Death-Fevers Few While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks 031.7 So few the days, so much that one could know, 050.1 Desired of many but achieved by few. 068.12 Fields Fields sere. 002.30 And looted fields; 039.9 For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, 051.34 On fields of noon, 109.28 Fiends Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, 086.6 Fierce And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, 007.11 No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, 007.55 Of slow, fierce grief. 039.18 Fight Air and water creatures fight, 126.10 Figures Enigmatic loveliness of enigmatic figures, 006.13 The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight 061.3 Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, 096.80 Fill Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— 079.2 I am all cups that fill, 133.28 Filled see also Plague-Filled For ever his heart is filled with yearning, 018.9 Valerian! Thine eyes are filled 030.45 A heady fragrance filled the air 049.9 That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing 076.8 Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; 081.12 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 Though every day were filled with benison 115.3 Strange songs filled the air 136.5 Fills I do not know. There is an ache that fills 027.9 Seaweed fills deserted lanes; 047.23 Final And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, 007.35 Forget, with the long, final forgetting 009.23 I peered far down the final future ages, 036.33 Like me uncertain of their final fate 087.3 I am my own final taker, 133.11 And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, 134.22 As you begin your final travel, know 146.2 Find And never shall I find release, 004.79 And yet, in all my travels I could only find 013.15 And find that what I thought so great is but 016.3 Some thing I find not though I ever seek. 027.11 And find its cosmic burial 030.39 And when they oped they could not find 030.43 Where shall I find you? 033.40 To be, I thought to find in nearer faces 036.47 F I will not find it till all things shall cease, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? I have riven all darkness to find thee. And find defeat ere I have much begun; All it would find was a plump drowned rat For I will help you find— Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— I can not find, nor do I seem to place Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? To reach the haven I would never find. Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; I only find more ennui in philosophies, I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, And find, the one reality is Death. The artistry external, and I find And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only What they are told, the falseness never find Finder Never finder, Finding Finding that life from end to end Finds Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; Fingers see also Willow-Fingers Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge Over his breasts his fingers hover, By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, Tremendous fingers, growing, strengthening, Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— Finger-Tips Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, Finish Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Fire For wine of fire. Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, Fire, supernal. I am fire, Fire-Flies Flickering flames and fire-flies Fires see also Fen-Fires, Witch-Fires With monstrous fires aflame. With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, 133 036.58 043.4 043.5 050.6 057.15 067.45 067.56 077.5 083.8 085.12 096.11 096.20 096.61 101.28 102.15 117.13 118.5 118.6 118.7 121.7 133.36 142.7 120.7 011.13 018.3 031.2 074.12 129.3 058.7 086.4 003.8 004.8 013.6 018.12 019.1 040.3 051.40 061.9 066.12 133.14 126.3 012.25 034.7 051.24 134 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And deeper fires, burning, burning, burning, With monstrous fires aflame. The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; Firkins And every prof, a second Firkins, Firmament But still assail the deeper firmament. Firmly So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, First In the soft, first capture. I was the first to tinge his pen; And they who merely lived are first to sigh: At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, She often made the first down payment, Who knows when I first began? Fish Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Fishes Fishes swim and monsters creep Only fishes keep a seeming Only growths and fishes dwell Fists In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Fitful With fitful gust That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred Five see also Sixty-Five Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop Fixed And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. Set, fixed, immovable my head: Set, fixed, immovable my bed; Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed Flagon The table is spread and the flagon red Contains what a flagon always should! Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Flagons The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Flame Their flame and their tears; You flare up in the all-consuming flame, Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. With dazzle of a monstrous flame, And surge of falling flame of far dominions, By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, I have burned all my flame at the altar, Like a flame, like a splendor supernal, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? He was possessed with my red flame, But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. With refluence of flame A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, 051.52 067.25 086.11 138.29 050.14 050.4 033.20 046.2 051.18 105.12 128.7 133.58 093.8 047.3 047.19 047.37 124.7 002.21 074.6 011.12 014.30 054.8 054.9 054.10 022.5 022.6 098.6 129.9 009.22 017.5 018.12 030.42 034.8 036.50 043.1 043.17 043.21 043.28 046.21 056.7 071.8 109.30 111.1 119.6 130.7 F When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, Flamed And back; and purple suns flamed northerly Flameful And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. Flameless Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, Flames For sick flames and the crawling dust, Flickering flames and fire-flies Flaming The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, As I remember, there were flaming tongs Flamingly For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses Flapping With flapping tatters and long talons lean. Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard With flapping tatters and long talons lean. Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; Flare You flare up in the all-consuming flame, The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; Strange witch-lights flare, Flares A ruby flares in the glistening sky, Before the palace a beacon flares, Flaring Still farther where not even stars were flaring Flashes Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, Flashing With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, Flaunting Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting Flaws Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Flay Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, Flayed That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells Flecked see Green-Flecked Fled And summer is fled, And summer is fled, In their hidden othertime long fled. Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Flesh? Fled. For ever fled. Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. That followed through the chamber where I fled. To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, A thousand and a thousand years have fled; Flee And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, Fleeing In that far, future time where I was fleeing I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, Fleet Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, Joys that pass and youth too fleet, 135 141.7 071.3 127.10 043.32 051.24 046.14 126.3 066.9 080.5 101.23 029.4 079.1 090.4 105.1 017.5 040.3 061.6 125.5 125.14 036.29 060.1 020.7 096.74 117.12 086.6 080.6 002.2 002.32 006.4 007.34 044.4 054.63 054.64 078.8 088.6 090.11 099.7 029.11 070.7 088.11 090.11 076.1 133.3 046.47 100.5 136 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Fleeting And while the fleeting hours away; For a love that was fleeting as day? Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. The trees, the birds, the fleeting springs, the years, I am the fleeting dew, Flesh The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching And her flesh, glad. The mortal flesh that dies? Tremors across his white flesh pass. But only and ever his flesh is burning, Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, Or in my dead flesh foul to float, Flesh? Fled. Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, Although my flesh with many knives is slit. The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. Fleshless And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, Fleshly The fleshly flowers whispered avidly: Flesh-White The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, Fleshy One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside Flew With wings of beating purple flew to me Flickering Flickering flames and fire-flies Flies see Fire-Flies Flight That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! Could wing no flight, Fling Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Flinging Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging And everywhere the women flinging Flitting The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight 004.72 043.8 051.42 102.10 133.29 003.11 003.17 003.24 012.49 018.8 018.11 019.3 020.4 023.2 029.6 051.26 051.47 054.13 054.24 054.28 054.44 054.63 068.10 076.13 080.6 082.14 087.4 090.6 091.7 096.53 103.4 103.14 029.13 082.1 003.5 091.13 071.7 126.3 025.4 034.13 097.1 015.21 049.23 061.3 F Float Floats Flood Floor Flopping Floss Flow Flower Flowered 137 Or in my dead flesh foul to float, Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, What evil source your awful scarlet flood? There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood Stained is the coffin floor And widening inch by inch along the floor 054.44 069.4 060.12 096.86 017.2 106.3 054.46 078.3 Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss Where other universes flow. Sea-tides ebb and flow; Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Before me, one closed portal, and the flow She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: Of the dual flower that alone endures; O Love, a flower closes I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken 095.4 056.7 030.40 047.7 060.3 078.5 078.10 099.8 112.2 051.30 109.1 110.7 That flowered not, and all things weep to die, Flower-Heads To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. Flowers Of flowers that die, The flowers of old are overblown, Dream, with the flowers dreaming, They passed the land where flowers gnaw From flowers strown upon the ground The fleshly flowers whispered avidly: I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses And flowers fair as moly Flowerwise Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before Flowing The flowing porphyry Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, Flown Of summer flown. The years of the past have long since flown, So long, so far, so distant have you flown Flows A glow that develops and flows from the inner being Fluctuant Skeins of fluctuant color, lit Flung see also Far-Flung Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, And magic garlands flung Flushed And still to flushed and heated faces burning, 051.16 082.10 001.6 004.56 009.9 030.23 049.10 082.1 082.12 101.19 101.24 109.13 081.3 032.1 096.83 002.24 004.55 037.1 110.3 034.6 034.2 067.29 015.29 138 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Flushing She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Flutes And silver flutes And silver flutes Foam With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, The white-caps and the foam their coronal. Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Foaming That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, Fog Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. Fold see also Four-Fold Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, Folded Deeply the folded roses Folds Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, The golden poppy folds and each eternal I Follow Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, I am doom that all dooms follow, Followed A sibilance that followed as I stole That followed through the chamber where I fled. What followed me across the lifeless plain? And still it followed, still I heard it gain Follows What words convey how closelier she follows Who follows an endless stream The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, Fool I am a fool, for only fools would trust Fools I am a fool, for only fools would trust From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe Foot So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot Footfall And cast them for our footfall where Footprints Footprints of a man-bat woven Footsteps And never footsteps tread the ground. To perish when my later footsteps came; No ears to hear her footsteps die away. Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, And footsteps seem to pass The fall of footsteps light and pantherine The footsteps pantherine upon the ground. For For wine of fire. For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, For ever and ever and desolate, For a little while, our life is bright, For a little while, there is light, And the song of Beauty for ever dying For splendour unknown. For us the future never will come, 066.3 012.36 067.36 020.7 020.8 063.11 133.23 060.9 131.8 057.23 109.5 057.4 134.16 006.8 051.46 133.22 045.18 088.6 091.1 091.5 041.9 064.3 134.7 121.1 121.1 121.6 082.9 049.13 126.13 010.12 036.52 053.13 090.13 109.11 122.1 122.14 003.8 003.18 004.6 004.23 004.31 004.32 004.61 004.63 004.69 F Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, For one intoxicating night were mine. All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. For many a thousand leagues around For all is dead, and all is still, For none are left the tale to tell. For thee to reign. For this I offer thee: Nothing in all the universe is left for me, For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies In vain for peace. For him whose mystic sleep For him who sought the mystery, For him whose sightless eyes And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. For he has passed from stage to stage, To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; For ever his heart is filled with yearning, For the white-limbed god. For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong For ever mounting past the realm of light, My mind with longings for some ancient thing, And I, who long for fairer melodies For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. For I was his, that horror of the dead. For they are blinded with the glut For nothing suffices And still for this one dream all else forsaking Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. For we will know how love For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; 139 006.5 006.19 007.13 007.15 007.20 007.39 007.42 007.56 008.12 010.9 010.13 010.24 012.6 012.45 013.26 013.31 013.32 014.22 014.25 014.28 014.30 014.32 015.20 015.34 015.38 018.9 019.4 019.7 020.3 020.4 022.1 022.2 022.7 022.11 024.3 024.9 027.10 028.9 028.11 028.14 029.14 030.55 033.37 036.59 037.14 039.5 040.5 040.6 040.7 140 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. For song, not she, doth gain. Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Was it only for darkness to blind me, For a love that was fleeting as day? Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? For green corpses he did lust, For sick flames and the crawling dust, For his mad eyes; For a long and mystic sleep For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead And cast them for our footfall where Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, For all things die, but they die most regretful For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, For there will come none after, For I am dead. For ever dead. For ever dead. For ever fled. For ever spread. For ever dead. For ever dead, dead, dead. And the worm is king for eternity, For the tale is the grave’s. For magic black. And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, For you to reign. That play for pagan festival. For I will help you find— Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, The days for which the heart should be most grateful For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face What form you have, for always you appear Make this your home for I will make it yours; What nameless hunter searching for its meat? For in the talons I was fast immured. Before I dropped away, for I was free— For silence unto silence died away. 040.8 041.16 043.4 043.7 043.8 043.27 046.13 046.14 046.20 047.35 048.5 049.13 050.12 051.13 051.15 051.34 051.57 051.58 052.8 054.7 054.60 054.62 054.64 054.66 054.68 054.69 057.19 057.25 061.4 061.11 067.6 067.37 067.45 067.56 068.5 070.4 070.9 074.3 075.13 076.5 077.4 077.7 077.10 079.3 079.8 079.13 080.14 F For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. For my escape I knew what I must pay: They dragged me back with never pause for rest. Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, The chewed remains of something used for bait; I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever I must, for it arose, its mass dividing For I was its, that horror from the dead. Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet The tolling came like measures for a spell. Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, Make you fair for admiring. Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! She had a lover for her wondrous grace; Made for love, made for kissing; For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses For Death the Conqueror at last was king; Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. For sunlit earth: For dawn’s rebirth. These are the things I love you for: the gray For, and the loveliness you watch so well. For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom I love you for the charm earth gave to you, For things external, but of higher worth, I love you for the realms of endless view, I love you for the beauty all can see, And more for beauty, only known to me. You care for that warm house of all your own, Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping The years away intended, but for leaping Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. For I give love like sips of precious wine For you have taught a thousand things to me, I am a fool, for only fools would trust For the winds that have blown, 141 085.14 086.3 086.5 086.6 087.6 087.13 089.8 090.14 092.6 094.8 096.13 096.36 097.3 097.5 098.1 098.2 098.3 098.4 098.5 098.6 098.7 099.13 100.2 101.19 101.23 107.9 108.1 108.2 108.3 109.4 109.8 114.1 114.12 115.14 116.5 116.9 116.10 116.11 116.13 116.14 117.2 119.1 119.4 119.5 119.8 119.13 120.10 121.1 123.2 142 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei For the springs that are gone. 123.4 For the times that are over, 123.7 For the grain that is reaped 123.8 And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, 124.3 And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, 124.4 I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. 124.14 On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines 125.19 And for the rest, she owed, and owed. 128.8 For she paid half, when they went Dutch, 128.19 And paid for all, on some occasions. 128.20 For you were token. 132.6 The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms 134.1 But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand 134.2 The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, 134.7 For they are life and love to me, 137.17 For who could ever be a prof. 138.33 For surely none would think of spurning 138.37 Working hard for pieces-of-eight, 142.6 For I am as mad as mad can be. 142.10 And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! 145.5 Force Yet twined around me with inhuman force. 074.14 A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, 083.1 Malefic, purposive, with alien force 088.5 That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. 090.8 As the unknown force disposes 133.61 Returning humbly our own love whose force, 146.6 Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force 147.11 Forchamer “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” 139.10 “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” 139.18 Foredone Shall even as my lost days be foredone, 031.12 Foredue Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom 118.11 Fore-Glimpse Fore-glimpse of after-hell. 045.8 Foreign A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places 111.3 Forest Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling 015.15 What forms were those that through the forest sleeping 015.17 By forest track 061.2 I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken 110.7 Foretell The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell 096.94 Forever And by the dark caress was claimed forever, 011.23 Upon an endless path forever going 036.61 Forevermore But all is mute forevermore. 010.4 Forevermore. 054.45 Forevermore. 054.47 Forevermore. 054.52 F 143 Forevermore. Let us forget the passing of years, Let us forget vain sorrow and tears Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting Forget, with the long, final forgetting And forget worlds olden? Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget 054.56 004.52 004.53 009.21 009.23 033.30 098.5 146.3 Dream of forgetful day, Forgetting Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting Forget, with the long, final forgetting Forgot Hast thou forgot Have you forgot?— If I thus forgot to meet Forgotten see also Soon-to-be-Forgotten As the forgotten girls who placed them there. The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, By forgotten poets told. From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping Exhume forgotten platitudes Forlorn Of the woods to a spot forlorn, Form see also Dream-Form A form that clings to a satyr sings, Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? And the form that it covers is thine. No other form is near, Cover the form whose hand still gropes. Where the trees form a little dark room: Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. What form you have, for always you appear A glowing form, it drifted on a course A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry Of human form or beast, weird sorcery Of some white form that made a rattling sound; All things their form reveal, Formless With formless terrors running through my mind? Forms see also Witch-Forms What forms were those that through the forest sleeping And body to body, drunken forms were swaying A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: 109.6 Forget Forgetful 009.21 009.23 012.46 067.46 100.7 004.60 004.68 006.16 008.10 015.21 027.14 031.2 036.5 047.15 112.9 138.15 065.6 023.5 027.8 043.36 058.10 062.10 065.10 072.6 077.7 088.4 089.6 093.7 104.6 109.18 083.4 015.17 015.39 015.45 144 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere And weird encrusted forms on every side. Forsake What though one kingdom each of you forsake, Forsaken Forsaken often, she forsook Forsaking And still for this one dream all else forsaking Forsook Forsaken often, she forsook Forth We turned and set forth once more, So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: Forty To forty thousand species, Woman Forward And every forward step a weary strain. Fought I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? Foul Foul messenger of war and holocaust, Or in my dead flesh foul to float, Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, What shape of evil? What its foul intent? Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Found All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. My destiny, and found what men can never guess; I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; But found no other than the great refrain: Still seeking that which I had never found, I have not found it sleeping or awaking. One old familiar face I found One old familiar face I found. They found him deep within an ancient cave Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found I found my leg become a hellish root, I found no door, and when all hope lay dead And found, the one reality is Death. We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, The lands no traveller ever found on earth; Fountains I have drunk at the fountains And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Four-Dimension And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; Four-Dimensioned When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; Four-Fold The elements their four-fold essence send you, 061.7 092.1 095.8 051.31 128.23 036.59 128.23 048.2 082.9 096.22 140.9 091.4 085.2 017.18 054.44 057.14 091.2 104.4 125.1 013.5 013.10 013.14 014.19 036.42 036.57 049.15 049.21 059.1 072.3 082.11 088.7 102.13 112.15 116.12 033.3 034.9 130.3 130.19 141.3 141.19 130.14 141.14 051.41 F Fourth Fourth was I in the coloured host, Expound a learned fourth dimension Fragrance A heady fragrance filled the air And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, Fragrant Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Frail With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, Frantic A frantic whisper with the wind is blended They added madness to my frantic cries Free Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, Before I dropped away, for I was free— The ocean beds were open now, and free, I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Freeing Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing Frenzy That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. Fresh The ever fresh design of your own fashion. Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; Freshening see Ever-Freshening Fresher With the fresher tracks of cloven Fretful But they whose life was barren are most fretful, Friend Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, Friends see Sea-Friends Fright And fearful regions of a nameless fright, From From a nightingale’s golden throat, From the Arctic gloom. We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses And death, the great, from whom he held his vow For he has passed from stage to stage, From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— From all the hate of all those bitter scars. That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, What will it matter a thousand years from now Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. From the way I have taken From the sweep of vast spaces Or from transitory Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers 145 046.26 138.13 049.9 096.88 096.25 060.7 015.43 084.3 051.60 061.11 079.13 095.2 133.23 006.8 076.8 080.2 051.28 078.14 084.2 126.14 051.17 142.8 146.1 025.8 001.4 002.19 003.15 014.6 014.32 015.31 015.36 015.41 015.47 020.12 021.1 023.3 024.8 024.11 026.5 029.8 033.11 033.13 033.31 034.4 146 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And all the glory faded from the skies. Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, From utmost regions of strange realms returning, We will pour ashes from the phials And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, Risen a spectre from the dead From each of us he took his joy, Fronds from out its temples rise; From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts The twilight brought no ease from the hot From heat and plague as they died, The shadows slipped from our side. From flowers strown upon the ground The garlands from their brows unbound It knew me not from all the rest, Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, From dawn to dusk her white sides feel That streams from her glowing body bare From a meadowlark’s passionate throat, From having watched the dead rose petals strew Till thus, from incantation and invoking, From towers topless as the realms of sleep Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; Part human creatures creeping from their lair. I watched them till, from out the greater dark, But something from the dark side of the moon All substances and creatures from the bond From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. I begged the gods to save me from such pain. A sentient entity from hell, alive. I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, For I was its, that horror from the dead. Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Alone protruded from the desert sand, From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses 034.17 036.39 036.43 039.10 042.8 043.3 043.28 045.2 045.7 046.19 046.37 047.22 048.1 048.13 048.22 048.24 049.10 049.12 049.20 051.10 054.24 057.22 060.17 060.20 063.4 068.3 068.8 069.3 070.7 072.4 074.9 075.12 076.9 080.4 080.10 088.14 089.1 089.13 090.14 092.5 093.4 094.4 094.7 096.19 096.40 096.41 096.52 F From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, And from a dusky corner came the stare Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon But from the sundered room I never crept— That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; The air from some vast stellar carnage bled From any moon. A glow that develops and flows from the inner being A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping Differed so, each from each, and this one more For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. Encysted from the sight of other eyes; From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe Their ravage, if they had not come from you. From the fury of living. Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; From the palace, a marble monster whines, Rise from half-decaying logs She rules a realm decayed from elder days, And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. From the riddle of the rib As from birth From the cry From the one reciting there. Who came from near and came from far The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Finding that life from end to end Fronds Fronds from out its temples rise; With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, Front In front or behind, Fronted I could not turn though fronted by the rack. Frozen For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies Fruit All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Fruitless Upon a fruitless quest. I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, 147 096.91 101.11 102.2 104.5 105.7 105.13 106.6 106.12 109.32 110.3 111.3 111.7 111.8 112.9 115.7 115.14 119.2 121.6 121.14 123.12 124.13 125.18 126.7 127.17 130.10 130.13 130.15 130.16 133.39 133.40 133.43 136.6 140.7 141.13 141.15 141.16 142.7 047.22 060.7 073.2 144.3 083.10 013.31 007.2 031.6 098.4 036.32 124.1 148 Fugitive A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: 112.14 Fugues And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? 042.8 Fulfilled And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. 044.8 Full see also Wine-Full Thine eyes, Valerian, are full 030.25 Nor always full the charming sleeve— 042.17 Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom 096.26 Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! 098.6 And a bitter full heart, 123.13 Fuller A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. 051.14 Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; 115.8 Fully Now I fully awaken 033.9 Fulness But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, 051.19 To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, 051.51 Fumbling By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, 031.2 Fuming The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; 040.3 Fungi Have known the fungi of the moon, 030.2 Fur To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, 089.9 Furnace In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, 043.22 Further I further search with neither hope nor peace 036.60 Fury Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? 043.16 My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, 046.22 With eyes of golden fury; while a score 081.6 From the fury of living. 123.12 Fused I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, 091.9 Futile Or as the futile, giant music made 031.3 And to no futile dream of death aspires, 051.20 Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, 096.68 Futility Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, 096.68 Future For us the future never will come, 004.69 I peered far down the final future ages, 036.33 In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the 043.15 future, the passions to waken, All past and future. Traveler, stay! 067.50 In that far, future time where I was fleeing 076.1 I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. 077.12 All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; 096.71 The soon-to-be-forgotten future days. 102.8 We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping 112.11 Nothing of future or present, 123.18 G Gain For song, not she, doth gain. And still it followed, still I heard it gain All lacking, and all gain. Gains Perfection gains by contrast and may be Galaxies And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; Gall The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. Game She loved to play a dangerous game Games Revel and welcome, games and play Gaoled Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled Gap So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, Gaping And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, Garden I am the night and the garden and all things swoon The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; Gardenia A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in Gardens Have perished in ruinous gardens fair By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; Garland The wreath, the garland, and the rose, Garlands And garlands overflung Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; The garlands from their brows unbound And magic garlands flung Garments Her garments only know what curves and hollows Gas And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Gates The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, Gather The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight Gaunt Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll Gave By the girls they gave their love. Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop We left her only to the waiting earth that gave I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, They gave me back my eyes so I could peer And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave I love you for the charm earth gave to you, Gaze Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. And past the winding river’s end you gaze, Gazed They gazed on stars that now are dust, 041.16 091.5 096.72 117.11 036.6 007.4 007.56 013.5 128.13 049.5 048.19 050.4 029.13 101.3 101.17 129.13 004.59 012.30 026.14 067.30 049.24 012.29 015.22 049.12 067.29 041.11 145.5 086.13 061.3 011.8 085.3 004.28 011.12 035.11 046.6 087.9 090.6 116.9 059.16 147.4 030.33 150 Ge Geese Gems A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. I offer thee phantasmal gems More fabulous than all the gems of fame, I offer you phantasmal gems More fabulous than all the gems of fame. And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, Their gentle drapes enfold. On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. When I felt through me spread the germ For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead 138.22 137.24 012.22 012.23 067.22 067.23 096.16 025.13 041.12 131.4 054.26 048.5 Her gestures supplemented well The coeds only get along My royal robes like a purple ghost Like the ghost of an echoing note Ghostly More ghostly than the faint starlight. While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary And mistily shone the ghostly With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. Ghosts Peopled with ghosts of their invention, Giant Or as the futile, giant music made And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. A giant shape part human, part despair, And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom Gibbous I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; Gift Life is the gift to a slave. Gifts The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, Gigantic Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, Gigantically There was a sound, gigantically loud, Gilded Or gilded idols undeserving trust, Girdle A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten Girl see also Dancing-Girl Never again will a dead girl thrill Lovely as any girl the world has seen, The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, Girls By the girls they gave their love. As the forgotten girls who placed them there. The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: 128.35 138.6 046.27 063.3 010.8 045.11 045.13 110.8 138.14 031.3 034.9 089.11 094.7 105.2 004.38 003.5 049.26 011.4 Genius Gentle Germ Germs Gestures Get Ghost 106.5 051.4 023.3 129.14 004.66 008.11 015.12 023.1 135.12 142.8 004.28 004.60 013.18 015.21 015.28 096.22 G Give Let us give over ourselves to delight, The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, The subtle pleasure that you give to me, For I give love like sips of precious wine Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Given Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Was the tribute then given in vain? Though they, with cruel joy, had given me Gives To this he gives his only adoration, And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, Glad And her flesh, glad. That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. How glad I was that I at last awoke! Glade In the glade. Through the still, sleeping glade Glades You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. Gladness There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness Glare No glare Ever the orb’s fantastic glare Their wild eyes glare. And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Glares All night the blood-red ruby glares, Glass Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, Glasses The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! Gleam No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Gleaming Watch upon the ruins gleaming Sometimes her gleaming eyes By the luscious curtains gleaming. Gleams On which the cool green rain gleams. Glee She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. Glide From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Gliding Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, Glimmer That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. Glimmering The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, 151 004.51 015.12 051.36 114.10 119.13 124.12 043.1 043.18 084.12 068.13 096.28 003.24 030.32 066.14 103.14 104.14 015.40 065.5 017.16 015.33 053.9 055.13 061.8 105.4 125.13 038.14 082.6 022.1 022.9 040.4 127.10 130.4 130.20 141.4 141.20 047.20 060.6 136.4 136.10 066.14 082.4 130.16 141.16 089.5 060.5 044.6 152 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Glimpse see Fore-Glimpse Glistening I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. 075.2 A ruby flares in the glistening sky, 125.5 Glittering Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, 082.6 Gloat Worms now have ceased to gloat, 054.43 Gloom From the Arctic gloom. 002.19 And underneath the shroud of gloom 010.14 Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, 011.4 Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, 057.12 But when I passed and left them in their gloom, 081.13 And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom 094.7 I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; 131.10 Gloomy In the depths of gloomy murk: 047.38 Glory She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, 003.9 As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; 003.34 Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; 003.38 A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, 007.31 The glory of 012.39 The older glory of the days that were 026.12 Of a glory I have drunken, 033.21 Or be bathed in new glory, 033.29 And all the glory faded from the skies. 034.17 Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, 043.3 And its glory far was known, 047.14 The glory of 067.39 And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, 096.4 A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: 101.22 Glow Thy cheeks that glow, 004.17 Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, 043.3 But inbetween; whose phosphorescent glow, 075.4 078.12 With blood that had so curious a glow; A glow that develops and flows from the inner being 110.3 Is it the glow so magically bringing 110.11 And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. 112.4 Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. 131.8 Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. 146.9 Glowed That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred 074.6 Glowing That streams from her glowing body bare 060.20 And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on 066.11 A glowing form, it drifted on a course 088.4 The naked torso of a goddess glowing 092.4 And every dream-form glowing 109.29 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 Glows The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light 134.11 Glut Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, 016.1 G For they are blinded with the glut Gnarled There where the gnarled limbs twisted Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Gnaw They passed the land where flowers gnaw Go And thou shalt go; All to death must go. After a while shalt go. Go! I can not bear thee, Go! Phosphorescent creatures go So dark whichever pathway one may go, With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, She will go in the cold moonlight To her tryst she will go in the night, Offends my nostrils. Go! I can not bear you. Go! Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, I still have far to go, it’s late. Death: However far you go, I wait. Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go To keep me company lest I go mad: Why, there each young M.A. would go to, And asked to go to Hades. There always was farther to go. How greatly you have guided us. We go Goal I sought my spirit’s goal. Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder What goal, what new companion did I seek? I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? Building on to what goal later, Goblets The sight of goblets cool and rounded, God see also Half-God For the white-limbed god. For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, Thine eyes were old when God was born, The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. To play God, Goddess Was there a goddess in the days of old, The naked torso of a goddess glowing Goddess or devil or only human, Gods see also Half-Gods, Lizard-Gods As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. 153 030.55 045.1 045.19 147.1 030.23 004.15 004.20 004.42 012.10 047.27 050.3 060.7 065.1 065.3 067.9 067.10 067.51 067.52 067.53 083.9 096.97 103.12 138.36 140.8 144.5 146.4 036.24 037.11 072.9 085.2 133.62 128.2 019.4 019.7 023.6 025.1 025.13 030.9 066.10 102.3 107.14 133.17 027.1 092.4 140.11 008.4 008.12 154 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. Is such as gods impart Of the gods, I inherit Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. I begged the gods to save me from such pain. The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. The little gods then will tremble and waken The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. The elder gods have promised a day of returning And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. The monster gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, God’s From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning Goes To worship where she goes. Going Upon an endless path forever going “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” Gold Are black and gold and red, And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? On curious corpses, gold and green. By softer gold than gold. Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Are black and gold and red. And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, Golden From a nightingale’s golden throat, Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Of golden voices that will never speak; A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, A golden throat, a golden song that fail— An unknown golden tongue where every word With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, She waits the coming of the golden guest; Of golden voices that again will speak; With eyes of golden fury; while a score 015.27 024.4 032.7 033.4 051.63 080.10 130.1 130.2 130.3 130.4 130.9 130.12 130.13 130.17 130.18 141.1 141.2 141.3 141.4 141.5 141.8 141.9 141.12 141.13 141.17 141.18 015.31 041.8 036.61 139.15 012.13 027.4 030.24 032.4 051.3 067.13 096.16 114.6 125.6 001.4 006.5 012.34 021.1 021.7 028.2 051.46 066.6 067.34 081.6 G Gone Gongs Goo Good Goodby Goodbye Gorged Gossip Grace Graces Gracile Grain 155 Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, 096.58 The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms 134.1 Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair 134.5 Past golden poppy’s lure, 134.9 The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light 134.11 The golden petals burn, 134.15 The golden poppy folds and each eternal I 134.16 The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom 134.23 Oh, spring is gone 002.1 Oh, spring is gone 002.31 As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; 003.34 Lily and poppy and rose are gone, 004.57 The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, 007.53 Whose dream of old is gone 014.13 Pan is gone. 015.48 Each drunken reveller has long since gone; 040.2 Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, 043.3 That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, 050.5 These, these are gone, nothing of them remains 051.8 But now that time is gone of yore 054.51 Night be gone. 066.4 The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; 101.26 For the springs that are gone. 123.4 As I remember, there were clanging gongs 080.1 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 Evil and good. 003.32 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.4 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.8 For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! 022.11 Song and the Devil and Wine are good! 022.12 I’m quite as good as ears to asses; 137.8 Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, 146.1 067.54 Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— I am telling you goodbye, dear, 135.1 Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, 016.1 They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. 030.34 Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. 128.32 She walks with stately grace. 053.1 Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, 096.83 She had a lover for her wondrous grace; 099.13 So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace 114.3 Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? 119.11 A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in 129.13 Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, 146.5 In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— 012.52 So fair she is that beauty hath no graces 041.1 Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, 096.83 For the grain that is reaped 123.8 156 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Granules And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, Grape Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! Grape’s For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Grass Sleeping beneath the grass; Dream, with the brown grass withering Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Over the dreaming grass; And all the little jeweled blades of grass No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree Over the jeweled grass, I hear them in the grass when I am walking Over all the tall wet grass. Grass-Covered On the old and grass-covered mound Grasses see also Willow-Grasses The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses Grateful The days for which the heart should be most grateful Gratis I offer to my students gratis, Grave see also Sea-Grave Never will Beauty escape the grave, Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, We left no mark to show her grave, Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. In my grave beneath my mound. That presses on my grave and me, rolled The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, With all the dreadful cerements of the grave Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; Graven Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. Graves see also Sea-Graves For the tale is the grave’s. Gray Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide A gray dusk mists the air And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. And wriggle through my gray Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. Withdraw till dawn comes gray. These are the things I love you for: the gray Great My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, And death, the great, from whom he held his vow 130.10 141.10 023.2 023.6 022.7 004.44 009.11 018.6 040.7 065.2 082.3 093.3 109.10 131.1 136.12 065.15 044.6 063.2 101.24 070.4 137.16 004.36 006.3 029.2 035.9 053.2 053.18 054.18 054.22 059.3 090.2 094.13 006.20 057.25 044.5 053.2 053.6 053.18 054.31 072.6 096.84 114.1 012.15 014.6 G But found no other than the great refrain: And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling And find that what I thought so great is but Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, Great joy he had. All his great love will end in me, So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. My thrones majestical, imperial, and great Amidst great cobwebs hanging everywhere As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, I came upon a curious great throne The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; I looked across the great plain warily. So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; Though every hour were rich with a great store The great Creator, And night’s great arch illume. “A great deal matters. Who are you?” Great big moonfaced politicians, Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Greater Among the greater infinite he quests, Before the greater dream whose dawn There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; A greater wealth your greater love assures I watched them till, from out the greater dark, Where sat an even greater, stranger being, Greater than Or much greater, Greatest The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage And in my greatest bliss I am Greatly The phantom that so greatly I desired How greatly you have guided us. We go Greece As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; The lips of the singers of Greece are still, Greek With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. Green see also Pale-Green 157 014.19 015.7 016.3 024.2 025.13 029.10 046.8 046.43 050.4 059.4 067.15 072.1 073.10 076.3 079.7 082.5 090.10 095.7 096.13 096.85 098.7 104.1 105.2 115.5 133.10 134.24 139.8 142.3 147.1 014.5 014.14 043.14 051.32 074.9 076.4 133.9 133.64 014.35 137.9 036.53 146.4 003.34 004.64 003.2 004.76 012.32 027.14 158 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And after this, there came to me one green On curious corpses, gold and green. Green Emerald green; For green corpses he did lust, Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, And after this, there came to me one green Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face On which the cool green rain gleams. Green-Flecked The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. Greet Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids What sight in later hours would haply greet And so I slowly raise the shade to greet Greeting Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, Greetings “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng Greets Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. Grew With power he grew intoxicate, Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. And steadily grew strange and stranger. Grief Can escape to tell of muted grief. And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Of slow, fierce grief. Grieve And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? And wood-winds lightly grieve Grime Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, Gropes Cover the form whose hand still gropes. Ground Rest, with the cold ground resting And never footsteps tread the ground. From flowers strown upon the ground In my tomb beneath the ground, She will sink on the cold, cold ground, Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Across a purple ground to purple cliffs The footsteps pantherine upon the ground. Group The face a group of eyes above a blur Grove see also Olive-Grove And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Grow Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, I watched the universe grow cold and chill; Where asphodels do grow. Only spectral lilies grow 029.1 030.24 046.9 046.12 046.13 051.50 060.1 090.1 114.2 136.10 096.38 039.13 066.3 079.6 083.11 051.36 049.17 018.12 046.29 073.4 094.13 112.3 128.16 006.12 013.23 039.18 042.8 109.3 057.4 062.10 009.1 010.12 049.10 054.17 065.13 069.7 071.2 122.14 089.12 011.6 018.2 006.1 036.34 041.4 047.30 G Growing Grown Grows Growth Growths Guard Guarded Guess Guessed Guessless And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom Tremendous fingers, growing, strengthening, Of creepers, and where head should be was growing Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped Weary of all desires grown monotonous, Grown faint, the winds drift slowly Of the pulpy head that never grows old, And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths Shadowy growths and shadowy skies Only growths and fishes dwell For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, My destiny, and found what men can never guess; “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, The face was lost and I had guessed The guessless riddle of infinity. She waits the coming of the golden guest; Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. How greatly you have guided us. We go But the gulf is cold see also Time-Gulfs That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule Gum O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, Gummy In gummy cloths of long and human hair. Gurgling My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke Gust With fitful gust On the autumnal gust; Guest Guide Guided Gulf Gulfs 159 096.43 096.49 096.50 129.12 134.23 074.12 092.8 078.4 096.7 109.9 057.24 096.29 096.89 101.29 025.6 011.3 047.24 047.37 074.3 011.8 024.12 013.10 139.15 036.30 049.18 014.26 066.6 146.7 146.4 047.16 024.11 071.10 096.34 104.8 072.12 104.12 002.21 009.18 H Had And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, As if a wind had musically stirred Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered When time had ceased, when every world was riven, Still seeking that which I had never found, Great joy he had. He had dreams and thoughts of just Before we had lost the shore. The face was lost and I had guessed Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source Had I, although I knew on what it fed, Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, With blood that had so curious a glow; The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Though they, with cruel joy, had given me I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall To every branch. The tree had long since died, I dreamed the waters of the world had died, She had a lover for her wondrous grace; Around, and see the comrades that I had; Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Oblivion had laid its deathless curse And DOOM had fallen on the universe. Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. Their ravage, if they had not come from you. That she had always invitations, She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, She had no scruples and no morals Hadean I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain Hades And asked to go to Hades. Hag The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, Hail “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; Hair The scented hair above thy brow, The rose and the violet bind her hair; Tumescent orchids swart with hair. To capture a breast, to hold the hair 013.23 015.6 015.11 025.13 028.7 036.9 036.37 036.42 046.8 046.15 048.4 049.18 074.13 075.7 075.13 078.12 079.7 084.12 085.2 092.7 093.10 095.1 099.13 103.10 104.3 106.13 107.1 107.4 107.14 121.14 128.18 128.31 128.37 128.39 012.5 067.5 140.8 079.12 137.27 004.19 019.6 030.16 060.19 H In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above In gummy cloths of long and human hair. A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing Hair’s Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace Half Most lovely, half satanic, half divine, Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, For she paid half, when they went Dutch, Like a steak half roasted there. Half-Ate Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, Half-Beasts But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs Half-Decaying Rise from half-decaying logs Half-God Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping Half-Gods Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? Half-Heard To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; Half-Mad He was half-mad; Half-Open Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery Hall And slowly paces to an inner hall, Halls Till at last, in her caverned halls The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. Hallways I hear them in the open and in hallways, Halt She will halt in a secret place She will halt where the moonrays trace Hand Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes Cover the form whose hand still gropes. The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Here, by the hand you held Handed The world of which no tale is handed down. Hands I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, And both my hands were covered with that red, Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace 161 072.8 096.47 104.8 111.7 114.6 027.2 083.3 128.19 136.8 087.7 125.15 126.7 015.19 015.36 111.10 046.4 093.6 069.10 060.21 081.14 131.15 065.9 065.11 057.13 059.5 062.10 074.10 074.11 083.6 093.5 132.3 068.14 011.22 017.8 072.3 076.11 090.10 092.7 104.3 106.9 114.6 162 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Hanging And hanging creepers that reluctantly Amidst great cobwebs hanging everywhere Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, Hangs Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— Haply What sight in later hours would haply greet Happily Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Happy Each pedagogue, a happy oyster, Hard In darkness absolute, and listening hard, Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? Working hard for pieces-of-eight, Hardness The deadly hardness of reality, Hark And the north-wind—hark! Harpy The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, Harry Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; Harsh That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy Harshly Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. And through the riven air, there harshly swept Harvest The harvest, and to revel deep Harvests Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. Has Has the cold of death Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, Lovely as any girl the world has seen, My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests For he has passed from stage to stage, From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; In a madness it has perished, Each drunken reveller has long since gone; Has love become an aquarelle? In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, Time has tolled a solemn knell, That has no counterpart in lands of time And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. Her face has watched the dying sun. That her domain has overrun. Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? She has yielded to the kiss of night, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— What sense of overhanging doom has made She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: 011.11 072.1 101.16 104.1 066.5 129.3 079.6 066.15 138.24 074.2 077.8 085.2 142.6 120.11 002.11 079.12 129.7 028.5 081.4 105.10 054.38 115.6 119.8 002.18 003.37 003.38 007.47 008.11 013.19 014.7 014.32 015.41 033.22 040.2 042.13 043.13 047.39 053.3 053.18 055.8 055.12 056.4 058.1 058.11 083.7 099.8 101.22 H 163 The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; 101.26 It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended 111.9 My life-illusion has at last been broken, 120.1 When death has been captured and time overtaken, 130.11 When death has been captured and time overtaken, 141.11 Hashish Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, 096.31 Hast As thou hast never known; 012.2 Hast thou forgot 012.46 And thou hast known the azure mist 030.17 Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, 043.1 Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, 043.1 Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? 043.25 I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, 043.26 Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? 043.27 Hasten The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! 129.16 Hate From all the hate of all those bitter scars. 024.8 Hated She hated all lies, save her own, 128.29 Hateful What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? 017.1 It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. 070.1 Hath That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy 028.5 Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, 031.13 And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. 031.14 So fair she is that beauty hath no graces 041.1 My lady hath two lovely lips, 100.1 Hatred Hatred and spleen. 046.16 Haunt In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. 131.12 Haunted Witching, haunted, haunting, mysterious faces 006.15 Thy purple haunted eyes are mad 030.30 This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, 045.6 Haunting 006.15 Witching, haunted, haunting, mysterious faces And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, 028.13 Remembered raptures haunting 096.75 Haunts The face that haunts thy memory? 012.47 And when in closer human haunts I tired, 036.55 The face that haunts your heart and mind. 067.47 As fearful as the haunts of the insane. 070.3 Have At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, 003.21 Beautiful maidens have their bed 004.25 Beautiful youths have long lain dead 004.27 Let us have joy while we may; 004.50 The years of the past have long since flown, 004.55 Have perished in ruinous gardens fair 004.59 For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, 007.15 164 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. 007.44 I have been made by thee idolatrous; 008.5 The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings 013.3 All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. 013.5 I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; 013.17 And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry 013.23 Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 Have known the fungi of the moon, 030.2 Have travelled lands Hesperian, 030.3 Have seen the blood-red plenilune. 030.4 Have seen the fall of many kings, 030.10 I have wandered in spirit, 033.2 I have drunk at the fountains 033.3 I have dwelt in the palace 033.7 From the way I have taken 033.11 Of a glory I have drunken, 033.21 But the eyes have no vision, 033.33 I have not found it sleeping or awaking. 036.57 So long, so far, so distant have you flown 037.1 I have riven all darkness to find thee. 043.5 I have sundered the stars away; 043.6 I have burned all my flame at the altar, 043.17 Wine of life and of death I have drunken, 043.29 On the nectar of love I have fed, 043.30 And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. 044.4 And find defeat ere I have much begun; 050.6 Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond 050.11 Therefor am I, with what I have, content, 050.13 All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; 054.13 In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled 054.23 I now have ceased to bloat; 054.42 Worms now have ceased to gloat, 054.43 067.2 As you have never known, Have you forgot?— 067.46 I still have far to go, it’s late. 067.52 Of secret worlds that have no name or place. 070.8 Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear 077.6 What form you have, for always you appear 077.7 And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) 077.11 Now they have buried me in this dark pit, 087.1 Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, 096.13 Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses 096.52 Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! 098.1 A thousand and a thousand years have fled; 099.7 I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, 101.1 A million million men have lived and passed, 102.12 Now they have buried me in this dark pit, 103.1 We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, 112.5 H We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, We have been participant and passer-by. To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, I am not sorry to have been your lover, For you have taught a thousand things to me, Were errors that have lost their hold on me. I have met darker nights than that of old, For the winds that have blown, Their elders have promised them a day of returning, Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair You have never been inspiring to my pen. The elder gods have promised a day of returning How greatly you have guided us. We go Haven Eternity between you and your haven; To reach the haven I would never find. Having From having watched the dead rose petals strew Haze And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze He He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep He strove to bring a light. He sought the infinite in life, but now Among the greater infinite he quests, And death, the great, from whom he held his vow He walks where none can know or see, His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky For he has passed from stage to stage, To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; He seeks to allay the old desire, He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, He burst asunder all the whelming bars He stood at last before the citadel He leered so vilely, Horror could not save He was half-mad; Great joy he had. Once he was pale with love of me, For green corpses he did lust, He had dreams and thoughts of just He was possessed with my red flame, With power he grew intoxicate, From each of us he took his joy, 165 112.6 112.7 112.8 112.10 112.11 112.13 112.14 112.15 120.9 120.10 120.14 122.9 123.2 130.5 134.5 135.6 141.5 146.4 037.8 085.12 068.3 106.13 147.2 014.2 014.3 014.4 014.5 014.6 014.9 014.17 014.32 015.20 018.6 018.10 024.1 024.5 024.10 029.7 046.4 046.8 046.10 046.13 046.15 046.21 046.29 046.37 166 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei He is mine. Than which no love can have supremer worth. What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, Where he sleeps with the dead. He turns, and now returns to unheard choral He wins the long awaited separation To this he gives his only adoration, He barricades himself against the world: He scans the regions lying all around, Each vespertime, he wearies of the view He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; His realms were vacua, he proved his vow He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise He surely was a classic beauty.” And every error, he would single-ish! Head Await thy kingly head. And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. Set, fixed, immovable my head: And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head Of the pulpy head that never grows old, She will pillow her head Await your kingly head. The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; Of creepers, and where head should be was growing That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. The dust of centuries lies on her head; If in your head or heart, there were not room Heads see also Flower-Heads With their faces dissolved and deathly heads Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Heady A heady fragrance filled the air Healing Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, Health A wine-red toast to the health of the host— Heap Their festful riot in my rotting heap. Heaps While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Hear I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; No ears to hear her footsteps die away. Never more shall I hear sound I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. 046.48 051.49 059.9 059.11 059.15 065.16 068.6 068.9 068.13 069.2 069.5 069.9 069.14 082.2 107.10 113.10 120.6 137.28 138.40 012.16 029.11 054.8 057.7 057.24 065.14 067.16 073.1 073.13 075.2 075.13 079.12 084.1 092.8 095.14 099.2 116.4 062.3 072.3 104.3 049.9 051.62 022.3 054.41 062.9 015.42 053.13 054.16 092.11 H Heard Hears Hearse Heart Hearts I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, How much more exquisite to hear me cry I listen, but I do not hear them fall, I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them when no human voice is talking I hear them in the rubble of defaced land I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, I hear them wide awake or part way resting, I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I hear them when I am not even questing I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I hear them in the open and in hallways, see also Half-Heard Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture The listening ear; its tones are softly heard I thought I heard the eerie My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, And still it followed, still I heard it gain All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom I heard alone the surging tides in motion. My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke Heard legends not by earthly voices told, That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse For ever his heart is filled with yearning, And the heart holds its ravage, Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. The face that haunts your heart and mind. The days for which the heart should be most grateful Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, O Love, my heart adoring Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses If in your head or heart, there were not room My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. And a bitter full heart, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, Of naked hearts, and dust 167 096.23 103.6 122.13 131.1 131.3 131.5 131.7 131.9 131.10 131.11 131.13 131.14 131.15 015.9 028.6 045.9 072.12 079.1 080.11 088.8 091.5 094.1 094.2 094.14 104.12 122.11 129.4 066.14 069.14 107.5 018.9 033.34 042.7 044.8 067.47 070.4 073.12 096.76 109.37 110.1 116.4 120.8 123.13 130.1 130.17 141.1 141.17 039.14 168 Heart’s Heat Heated Heaved Heaven Heavenly A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, And stifling tropic heat; From heat and plague as they died, In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; And still to flushed and heated faces burning, Then ocean received the husks that we heaved Of their paradisal heaven. All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; Heavens The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse Heavens’ Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, Heavy The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. Heavy-Lidded Heavy-lidded, somber-eyed, sacrosanct and sinful Held And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Nor I desire it if it held not you; Here, by the hand you held Heliation A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation Hell see also After-Hell A sentient entity from hell, alive. Hellish I found my leg become a hellish root, Hells Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells Help For I will help you find— There will be none with you to help you share it, Hemlocks Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks Henna The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Her I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Till her body be mine. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, 042.8 051.13 051.56 034.14 096.100 110.1 015.2 048.10 048.22 131.6 015.29 048.21 033.8 034.10 066.13 107.5 024.2 101.7 112.3 006.9 014.6 071.11 101.6 115.8 115.12 132.3 066.7 088.14 082.11 080.7 067.45 118.3 039.16 096.44 003.7 003.9 003.10 003.11 003.12 003.13 H Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, And her flesh, glad. And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; The lips of her of Troy, The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; The rose and the violet bind her hair; And her body is bare. Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? We buried her in the solemn fall We left her staring at the musty pall, Her world and sky. And left her lovely body to oblivion; We left her far more quiet body lying there: We left no mark to show her grave, We only left her body lying still and deep; We left her only to the waiting earth that gave Her birth and sleep. Upon her to bestow; Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Her step is lighter than the summer breezes Her garments only know what curves and hollows May sing of her are vain; Her loveliness in poetry lies never. Her bow toward the cleaner west Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide And in her movements, languid charms abide. And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. No ears to hear her footsteps die away. Old prophecies alone accompany her. Her face has watched the dying sun. She scans the shadows of her land, That her domain has overrun. 169 003.14 003.17 003.21 003.23 003.24 003.26 003.29 003.30 003.33 003.35 003.37 007.2 012.31 012.32 019.3 019.5 019.6 019.8 027.5 027.6 027.6 027.7 035.1 035.3 035.4 035.6 035.7 035.9 035.10 035.11 035.12 041.2 041.3 041.5 041.11 041.14 041.15 048.18 053.2 053.5 053.8 053.13 053.15 055.8 055.9 055.12 170 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Her vigil never will be done: Her timeless vision staring still All her dreaming, raptured face is white, There is pressure on her blood-red lips, Her eyelids vaguely stir; Caressing her? On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— Her coral isles and shadowy pearls That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. Sometimes her gleaming eyes That enters her wide domain. From dawn to dusk her white sides feel That streams from her glowing body bare Till at last, in her caverned halls To her tryst she will go in the night, She will pillow her head She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Moulds her breast. And indolently languish in her languorous The dust of centuries lies on her head; Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know There is no picture of her dear dead face, She had a lover for her wondrous grace; Duty, in her lips caressing! Dreaming of Her. All nature whispers but her one word: Death. And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her Her queer, ensorcelled eyes Her eyes of eidotrope, Mysterious as her sunken palace is, No human being could be near her: Her own reflections in a mirror. Her latest lover’s love was such Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. She hated all lies, save her own, Believed no truth except what pleased her; Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. Her laugh was like a silver bell. Her gestures supplemented well Her vestures; both were quite revealing. With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, And thus preserved her innocence. This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Lips parting and closing over the draught her Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. 055.18 055.19 058.3 058.5 058.6 058.8 058.9 058.11 060.4 060.5 060.6 060.16 060.17 060.20 060.21 065.3 065.14 066.1 066.3 066.8 096.10 099.2 099.3 099.5 099.10 099.13 100.8 101.15 102.9 113.7 127.1 127.11 127.12 128.10 128.12 128.17 128.28 128.29 128.30 128.32 128.33 128.35 128.36 128.37 128.40 129.1 129.2 129.3 129.4 H 171 There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! 129.5 129.9 129.10 129.14 129.16 As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, She slumbers lightly here, Was someone here? You’ve come again. You keep me company here, Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! Here at the house you dwelled Here, by the hand you held That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs And how my love that burns herein so deep Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... 073.10 006.19 058.2 058.12 077.2 078.8 129.16 132.1 132.3 146.3 147.1 031.11 077.13 Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; Hermaphroditus Hermaphroditus, loved and lover, Hers And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, Herself She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, She liked to don herself in raiment Hesitantly So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot Hesperian Have travelled lands Hesperian, Hetaira Hetaira, matron, virgin bringing Hid Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. Hidden see also Close-Hidden In their hidden othertime long fled. Hide Her grave, gray eyes a beauty hide The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; They are curious things that hide in the woods Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Hideous Oh color hideous, appalling, mad, And by a hideous world was crucified And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. In all this hideous land the only soul. Hiding With its drapery hiding all wholly, I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding 129.15 Hercules’ Here Herein Here’s Heretical 018.1 007.7 003.9 128.5 082.9 030.3 049.25 106.14 141.4 006.4 053.2 059.14 062.1 114.2 130.4 130.20 141.20 017.9 026.7 029.11 080.8 085.6 043.35 089.1 172 High A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei We were most high; The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers Atop a mountain measurelessly high Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, Higher For things external, but of higher worth, Highlands The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, Hill This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, I am sunlight on the hill, Hills Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, Hillside When down the hillside came a long, low crying, Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Him Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests For him whose mystic sleep For him who sought the mystery, For him whose sightless eyes The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, I brought him dreams of eternal night, I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, Clad him alone; They found him deep within an ancient cave Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. Antistrophes that seven before him knew, Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. Mobbed him to induce him; They paid him to seduce ’em! Till with derrick they capped him, Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, Himself He barricades himself against the world: Hint No hint of what it once resembled, save Hinted It merely hinted of the coming week. Hipped see Slender-Hipped Hippogriffs Of purple leagues, violet hippogriffs Hips A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— Hired For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. His Yield his body unto dust, And death, the great, from whom he held his vow 046.36 073.13 089.2 113.6 116.10 130.13 141.13 045.6 130.13 133.20 015.1 015.9 015.47 027.12 141.13 015.3 059.10 147.1 014.7 014.22 014.25 014.28 015.12 018.7 046.5 046.6 046.28 059.1 059.7 059.8 059.14 059.16 068.7 111.12 140.10 140.12 145.3 145.4 069.2 090.7 084.14 071.6 023.3 040.8 004.46 014.6 H His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; Over his breasts his fingers hover, Over his loins his deep eyes rove. There touches his body lightly a shiver, Tremors across his white flesh pass. For ever his heart is filled with yearning, But only and ever his flesh is burning, A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long His cosmic challenge in an alien world. And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; For I was his, that horror of the dead. I was the first to tinge his pen; His sunken eyes could only see For his mad eyes; We were the colours that his love From each of us he took his joy, All his great love will end in me, Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes An eagerness; and pain upon his features Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, To this he gives his only adoration, Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, His realms were vacua, he proved his vow Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. The true believer makes his own faith all along His life, his love, his song; Within the limits of his nose, Hissed That almost hissed or the shimmering mist Historic see Post-Historic Ho What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! Hoar My bones are hoar Hoarse I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Hold I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, Unbodied things hold silent sway Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold I searched the years that hold all things immortal To capture a breast, to hold the hair 173 014.17 015.11 015.38 018.3 018.4 018.5 018.8 018.9 018.11 023.7 024.6 024.14 029.5 029.6 029.14 046.2 046.11 046.20 046.34 046.37 046.43 046.47 059.2 059.3 059.5 059.6 059.13 068.13 069.4 107.10 107.14 134.20 134.21 138.25 048.15 022.2 054.55 088.8 003.7 003.17 003.23 008.13 010.10 027.5 036.17 060.19 174 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Were errors that have lost their hold on me. 120.14 Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. 146.7 Holdeth Of thine eyes holdeth me. 032.2 Holds And the heart holds its ravage, 033.34 Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, 061.7 Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. 070.14 Hollow I am mist in midnight hollow, 133.21 Hollows Shall I wander in the hollows 033.25 Her garments only know what curves and hollows 041.11 Holocaust Foul messenger of war and holocaust, 017.18 Holy We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy 003.27 For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, 007.15 And holy sin and sanctity were wed. 007.36 There, ringed with dark trees holy, 065.17 So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, 110.13 Home Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 Make this your home for I will make it yours; 077.10 Homely “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” 139.10 Homeward Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. 037.14 Hoofbeats Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed 092.12 Hoofprints No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. 040.4 Hooples Instead, they sound like Major Hooples 138.3 Hooves There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; 015.46 Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall 092.7 Hope Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing 031.9 Where only courage of lost hope could ravel 036.3 I further search with neither hope nor peace 036.60 Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; 070.7 I found no door, and when all hope lay dead 088.7 Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent 091.7 Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, 102.3 The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum 102.18 124.6 No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining And I hope that you won’t cry dear, 135.2 Hopeful The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. 128.24 Hopelessly And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly 045.15 Hopes All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; 013.6 Horizon The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, 066.9 Horizons Stretched farther than horizons. I could see 093.2 Horn He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. 069.14 Horror Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; 007.22 He leered so vilely, Horror could not save 029.7 Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. 029.8 For I was his, that horror of the dead. 029.14 H And stare and stare in horror as I meet For I was its, that horror from the dead. That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; Horrors These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, Host A wine-red toast to the health of the host— To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! Fourth was I in the coloured host, Hostile The unknown color hostile in pursuit Hosts From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Hot The twilight brought no ease from the hot They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; Hour Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour Though every hour were rich with a great store Houris And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, And houris sad songs croon. Hours The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, And while the fleeting hours away; Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, What sight in later hours would haply greet Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours House You care for that warm house of all your own, Arrays and disarrays the house contains, In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping Here at the house you dwelled Hover Over his breasts his fingers hover, And Psyche hover on the summer air. Hovering You drift upon the moonlight hovering near How How it howls and whoops How it wildly swoops How all my days are as an aria played How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing And how my love that burns herein so deep For we will know how love What words convey how closelier she follows How strange. How strangely empty is the room. How much more exquisite to hear me cry How glad I was that I at last awoke! How fair you were, if you were only fair, How greatly you have guided us. We go 175 083.13 090.14 106.6 104.9 022.3 022.9 046.26 088.12 048.1 048.13 084.1 101.7 101.27 072.10 076.12 115.5 096.16 096.60 003.25 004.72 031.9 070.9 079.6 096.58 096.74 115.4 115.6 117.2 117.6 119.4 132.1 018.3 051.37 077.3 002.12 002.14 031.1 031.5 031.7 031.9 031.11 039.5 041.9 077.14 103.6 104.14 116.3 146.4 176 However A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? Death: However far you go, I wait. Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Howls How it howls and whoops Hue Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? Discovering there an equal leaden hue, It was my own; my own face showed that hue, The door must open, showing why the hue Huge I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird The leering of a huge and sightless eye. My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. Huh “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” Hulk While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked Human And when in closer human haunts I tired, Part human creatures creeping from their lair. A giant shape part human, part despair, Of human form or beast, weird sorcery In gummy cloths of long and human hair. No human being could be near her: I hear them when no human voice is talking Goddess or devil or only human, Humblest And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. Humbly Returning humbly our own love whose force, Humming From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. Hundred They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; Still live a hundred years ago, Hung The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, That hung on our deep sea-graves. But all the strange and withered things still hung And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; Hungry I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, As of a lost and hungry child. Then die Hunted Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, Hunter What nameless hunter searching for its meat? Hunters Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. Huntsman The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, Hurled And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. 147.9 067.53 088.11 134.14 002.12 017.4 069.11 073.5 078.13 071.13 079.4 083.14 105.14 139.11 048.17 036.55 072.4 089.11 093.7 104.8 128.10 131.3 140.11 059.8 146.6 080.4 084.5 138.17 015.2 048.16 093.11 105.4 129.15 082.12 087.7 089.7 076.2 079.3 069.8 085.14 059.3 133.3 024.13 084.8 H Husks Husky Hyacinth Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks Then ocean received the husks that we heaved My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, Hylots To see the Hylots of Calair, Hymen Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. Hymn A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; Hypnotic Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. 177 089.14 031.5 048.21 072.12 104.12 051.34 030.14 051.63 007.30 007.44 110.10 055.16 I I I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses That I seek. The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Even as I. Even as I, Oh Myrrhiline, Thou art loveliest of the things I know; And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips And I shall play That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn And never shall I find release, Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, All night I bowed before a burning shrine; And I was more insatiate with satiation, And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night in worship and in love I lay; All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, 003.1 003.3 003.4 003.5 003.7 003.11 003.13 003.17 003.21 003.23 003.26 003.29 003.33 003.35 003.37 003.38 004.4 004.10 004.40 004.43 004.73 004.75 004.76 004.79 006.23 007.1 007.2 007.3 007.18 007.25 007.27 007.37 007.38 007.39 007.40 007.49 007.51 I No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, Unto the end I worship and adore; I worship thee and ever worship more. All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee I have been made by thee idolatrous; I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, Dearest of all dear things that I possess. And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. Into the shadowland I made my way I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. I peered amid those waters black and still. I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths DEATH: I offer thee such dreams I offer thee the moan I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. Go! I can not bear thee, Go! THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: I offer thee the wealth I offer thee phantasmal gems THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: I offer thee THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. For this I offer thee: Oh Poet, this I offer thee, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! I weary of the old monotony of things; All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. And now at last I crown me with a coronal In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; And yet, in all my travels I could only find I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; And I am sick to death with utter weariness I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; I know that death itself will never bring release; For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; 179 007.55 007.57 007.58 007.60 007.63 008.3 008.5 008.6 008.8 008.13 008.14 011.1 011.9 011.17 011.21 011.22 012.1 012.3 012.5 012.7 012.10 012.17 012.18 012.22 012.26 012.27 012.38 012.43 012.45 012.50 012.53 013.1 013.5 013.7 013.9 013.13 013.14 013.15 013.17 013.18 013.22 013.23 013.25 013.27 013.29 013.30 013.31 015.9 015.42 180 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I turn to this, And find that what I thought so great is but Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, To paint the things I never shall relate. Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? I do not know. There is an ache that fills Some thing I find not though I ever seek. There is a language I would fain employ, And I, who long for fairer melodies So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, For I was his, that horror of the dead. Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft I have wandered in spirit, I have drunk at the fountains Of the gods, I inherit I have dwelt in the palace Now I fully awaken From the way I have taken Where I entered the traces Of a glory I have drunken, And the ways that I cherished. Shall I wander in the hollows Where shall I find you? And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, I sought it in far lands of timeless travel I sought, but sought in vain. Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered And end, there too I sought. I searched the years that hold all things immortal I sought my spirit’s goal. I peered far down the final future ages, I watched the universe grow cold and chill; I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; I sought beyond no more. Still seeking that which I had never found, I watched on earth the littler things around; I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem To be, I thought to find in nearer faces In eerie borderlands I vainly waited The phantom that so greatly I desired I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; And when in closer human haunts I tired, I saw I still must fail. 016.2 016.3 025.1 025.2 025.4 025.13 025.14 027.5 027.8 027.9 027.11 028.1 028.9 029.10 029.12 029.14 031.8 033.2 033.3 033.4 033.7 033.9 033.11 033.15 033.21 033.24 033.25 033.40 034.16 036.1 036.8 036.11 036.16 036.17 036.24 036.33 036.34 036.36 036.36 036.40 036.42 036.44 036.46 036.47 036.49 036.53 036.54 036.55 036.56 I I have not found it sleeping or awaking. I will not find it till all things shall cease, I further search with neither hope nor peace I know this all I ever will be knowing: I promised you a villanelle, I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle; I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? I have riven all darkness to find thee. I have sundered the stars away; Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, Like a drinker of chloral I dream, I have burned all my flame at the altar, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, Wine of life and of death I have drunken, On the nectar of love I have fed, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, I saw the whispering knoll. I thought I heard the eerie A sibilance that followed as I stole I was the first to tinge his pen; I was the only colour when I brought him dreams of eternal night, I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, I am the colour deep blood-red, I, Paradise. Fourth was I in the coloured host, I was the sign of royal state, I am the colour yet to be; I am the sweet close winding-sheet One old familiar face I found “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng The face was lost and I had guessed One old familiar face I found. That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, And find defeat ere I have much begun; Therefor am I, with what I have, content, I adore you, Thus I close my doors And I am dead. Six feet deep I lie; 181 036.57 036.58 036.60 036.63 042.1 042.6 042.12 042.18 043.2 043.4 043.5 043.6 043.9 043.10 043.17 043.25 043.26 043.29 043.30 044.8 045.3 045.4 045.9 045.18 046.2 046.3 046.5 046.6 046.18 046.24 046.26 046.30 046.42 046.45 049.15 049.17 049.18 049.21 050.5 050.6 050.13 052.3 052.7 054.1 054.2 182 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And I am dead. I can not close an eye, I can not move a thigh, I can not even sigh For I am dead. All the rottenness, I dread; Never more shall I hear sound And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm When I felt through me spread the germ Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, I only sighed to feel them play I lie in my last sleep; I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, I feel the worms that leap I now have ceased to bloat; I am the sleeper Death: I offer you such dreams I offer you the moan I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain Traveler: I scorn you, Death, I can not bear you. Go! Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: I offer you the wealth I offer you phantasmal gems Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: I offer all Traveler: I scorn you, Death. For I will help you find— Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, I still have far to go, it’s late. Death: However far you go, I wait. Death: We will. We will, and I know when. Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. There where I wandered, purple shadows ran Across a velvet sky. And when I came. And when I crossed the imperial weaving span And so I soared on pinions of the night I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found What goal, what new companion did I seek? Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke I could not move though mind and spirit broke. The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long It fell in parts, and I was part of it. Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs 054.3 054.4 054.5 054.6 054.7 054.12 054.16 054.25 054.26 054.28 054.30 054.33 054.35 054.36 054.42 064.2 067.1 067.3 067.5 067.7 067.10 067.17 067.18 067.22 067.26 067.27 067.38 067.43 067.45 067.51 067.52 067.53 067.55 067.56 070.10 070.14 071.1 071.4 071.5 071.9 071.13 072.3 072.9 072.11 072.14 073.1 073.9 073.14 074.1 I For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard As I went onward toward those upper lairs. Then at the top I stood on magic squares I watched them till, from out the greater dark, And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. Had I, although I knew on what it fed, In that far, future time where I was fleeing I came upon a curious great throne And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour I can not find, nor do I seem to place Make this your home for I will make it yours; Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird For in the talons I was fast immured. And when the talons loosened, I could see Before I dropped away, for I was free— As I remember, there were clanging gongs As I remember, there were flaming tongs That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells As I remember, in my agony I begged the gods to save me from such pain. I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, The answer came, where I in torment lay, I knocked upon the portal till with clang Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before And when I saw these titans, thereupon But when I passed and left them in their gloom, I looked across the great plain warily. So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot I found my leg become a hellish root, I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? I could not turn though fronted by the rack. And so I slowly raise the shade to greet And stare and stare in horror as I meet They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Now was I destined after all to die, I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, I thought ironic laughter passed me by. Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying To reach the haven I would never find. I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. 183 074.3 074.4 074.5 074.9 074.11 075.2 075.7 076.1 076.3 076.12 077.5 077.10 078.4 078.8 079.1 079.4 079.8 079.11 079.13 080.1 080.5 080.6 080.9 080.10 080.11 080.13 081.1 081.3 081.11 081.13 082.5 082.9 082.11 082.12 083.3 083.8 083.10 083.11 083.13 084.7 085.1 085.2 085.4 085.7 085.8 085.11 085.12 085.13 085.14 184 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei For my escape I knew what I must pay: But punish, since their power I dared to test. The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, And I, and all that phantom city, died. They gave me back my eyes so I could peer To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever That followed through the chamber where I fled. I found no door, and when all hope lay dead I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding I must, for it arose, its mass dividing So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, For I was its, that horror from the dead. I struggled onward though my strength was spent And still it followed, still I heard it gain Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent And I in all that solitude lie slain. I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. Stretched farther than horizons. I could see Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried I too was fastened on that tree of death. All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom I heard alone the surging tides in motion. I dreamed the waters of the world had died, There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, I saw rise up a substance soft and white Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; I clap, and at the sign I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above 086.3 086.8 086.13 086.14 087.9 087.12 087.13 088.6 088.7 088.8 088.9 088.11 089.1 089.8 090.10 090.11 090.12 090.14 091.3 091.5 091.6 091.7 091.8 091.9 092.11 093.2 093.12 093.14 094.1 094.2 094.14 095.1 095.5 095.9 095.10 095.13 096.1 096.4 096.8 096.11 096.13 096.19 096.20 096.21 096.23 096.37 096.41 096.43 096.47 I But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, I only find more ennui in philosophies, Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, The maid I love was buried long ago; I know not whether she was slave or queen; I only know she died in Mytilene. If I thus forgot to meet I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses I vainly seek. The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken They left to me my eyes, so I could stare Around, and see the comrades that I had; To keep me company lest I go mad: And yet I could not move. There came a creak, And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke How glad I was that I at last awoke! I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, But from the sundered room I never crept— I scarce could know the evil that I did; I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken I know there are no princesses, but you Love comes. I know that I shall never be He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem These are the things I love you for: the gray These things I love, yet words can never tell The inner beauty I more deeply care Oh love, it is enough that I may be Nor I desire it if it held not you; And I would let it in complete eclipse I love you for the charm earth gave to you, I love you for the realms of endless view, 185 096.49 096.50 096.52 096.55 096.61 096.62 096.65 096.67 096.73 096.97 096.100 099.1 099.11 099.14 100.7 101.1 101.3 101.6 101.8 101.11 101.25 101.26 101.27 101.28 101.29 103.9 103.10 103.12 104.10 104.11 104.14 105.2 105.12 105.13 106.11 110.5 110.6 110.7 113.1 113.9 113.10 114.1 114.9 114.11 114.13 115.12 115.13 116.9 116.11 186 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I love you for the beauty all can see, The artistry external, and I find Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise I come to men with unrequiting passion, I answer—if they love me in my fashion, For I give love like sips of precious wine And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. I am not sorry to have been your lover, And truths I could not otherwise discover. I am a fool, for only fools would trust The acids would not matter, nor I rue And of my presence, I could feel no sign Of recognition, nor was I to stay I merely listened, as I listen still, And waited, wondered, though I did not know... I have met darker nights than that of old, I listen, but I do not hear them fall, Why am I sad? Thus am I sad. Why am I weary? Thus am I weary. Why am I old? Thus am I old. What do I want? This do I want. I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; I come, weary yet bearing still this load. I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them when no human voice is talking I hear them in the rubble of defaced land I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, I hear them wide awake or part way resting, I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I hear them when I am not even questing I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I hear them in the open and in hallways, And listen always as I journey on alone. I am man. I am the master of each living thing, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, I am wisdom of my own self blind, 116.13 117.13 119.7 119.9 119.12 119.13 120.2 120.4 120.9 120.12 121.1 121.13 122.3 122.4 122.7 122.8 122.9 122.13 123.1 123.5 123.6 123.10 123.11 123.15 123.16 123.20 124.1 124.2 124.5 124.8 124.9 124.14 129.16 131.1 131.3 131.5 131.7 131.9 131.10 131.11 131.13 131.14 131.15 131.16 133.1 133.2 133.3 133.4 133.5 I I am man, Of man I sing. I am builder, I am maker, I am my own final taker, I am man. I am slayer, I am slain, I am fire, I am sod, I aspire I am the empty brain Of man I tire. I am sunlight on the hill, I am mist in midnight hollow, I am doom that all dooms follow, I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, I am dust in cosmic outways resting, I am mote As I note I am man. I am all cups that fill, I am the fleeting dew, I am all deaths that chill, I am all life that springs anew, I am man. I am sower, I am reaper, I am wastrel, never keeper, I am seeker, While I pass by I rule the earth Till I end As I began, I am man. I am instant lost in time, I am atom lost in space, I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, I am the cinder wiped away, I am night erasing day, I am nothing as I die, I am man. Who knows when I first began? Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, The golden poppy folds and each eternal I I am telling you goodbye, dear, And I hope that you won’t cry dear, If I never take you anywhere again; Though I know that you are pretty, I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Oh what a classicist am I, I know all Latin stems and nouns, 187 133.6 133.7 133.8 133.11 133.12 133.13 133.14 133.15 133.16 133.18 133.19 133.20 133.21 133.22 133.23 133.24 133.25 133.26 133.27 133.28 133.29 133.30 133.31 133.32 133.33 133.34 133.35 133.41 133.42 133.45 133.46 133.50 133.51 133.52 133.53 133.54 133.55 133.56 133.57 133.58 134.4 134.16 135.1 135.2 135.3 135.4 135.12 137.1 137.3 188 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The authors’ names I know by rote, And in my greatest bliss I am When I can make my students Cram. I offer to my students gratis, Oh what a classicist am I, And when I die, must be enscrolled Oh what a classicist am I. “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” I am as mad as mad can be, For I am as mad as mad can be. And you and I There was a young woman I know I take the bridgeway you already know. Icon That doth the icon and the dream inherit, I’d Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace Such a treasure? I’d be missing Can’t you see that I’d be able Ideal In their ideal, idyllic college, Idol The idol in my shrine of ebony, Idolatrous I have been made by thee idolatrous; Idols Or gilded idols undeserving trust, Idyllic In their ideal, idyllic college, If And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, As if a wind had musically stirred As if a wizard’s wand Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes No love endures if love be only passion And no love lasts if love be only mind, Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear As if there never were an end in store. To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. And if you mesmerize And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, If I thus forgot to meet Nor I desire it if it held not you; How fair you were, if you were only fair, If in your head or heart, there were not room I answer—if they love me in my fashion, Their ravage, if they had not come from you. And scandal, better if unfounded. If I never take you anywhere again; 137.5 137.9 137.10 137.16 137.19 137.25 137.29 139.2 139.15 142.1 142.10 143.7 144.1 147.14 051.48 025.7 025.9 100.4 135.8 138.19 008.7 008.5 051.4 138.19 015.7 024.12 028.7 034.3 037.11 045.14 051.22 051.23 067.54 077.6 078.7 087.12 096.39 096.43 096.46 099.12 100.7 115.12 116.3 116.4 119.12 121.14 128.4 135.3 I 189 If your name were only Mabel 135.7 If this were done to Minnesota, 138.35 I’ll I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. 077.12 I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever 087.13 “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” 139.15 Illa And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul 096.79 Illaha And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul 096.79 Illume And night’s great arch illume. 134.24 Illumes No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. 040.4 Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. 053.10 Illumines And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. 110.4 Illuming The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming 015.25 Illusion see also Life-Illusion You proved illusion not more strong than oaken 120.5 Illusions Romantic dreams, illusions, poetry, 120.13 Illussimae Illussimae and classicorum 137.21 Illustrate To illustrate their attitudes, 138.16 I’m I’m quite as good as ears to asses; 137.8 “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” 139.3 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” 139.11 “But I’m perfectly moral.” 139.13 Image To seek some image far behind some portal 036.19 The image and the fanes 109.38 Content to know the image of the dream, 113.11 Images What are the dim dread images that bind 083.5 Imbedded Imbedded witches’ jewels mystical, 127.8 Immarbled The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; 012.32 Immerse Where Death in death all things did not immerse. 107.8 Immortal Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing 015.37 I searched the years that hold all things immortal 036.17 Immortally I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, 003.1 Immovable Set, fixed, immovable my head: 054.8 Set, fixed, immovable my bed; 054.9 Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed 054.10 Immured For in the talons I was fast immured. 079.8 Impalpable Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, 088.3 Impart Is such as gods impart 032.7 Impelled I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, 045.3 190 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Imperfections Your imperfections are as fair to me Imperial My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, My thrones majestical, imperial, and great And when I crossed the imperial weaving span Impersonal Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; Imposed see Self-Imposed Impotent Though singly impotent, might be in mass Impresses Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Imprisoned Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. Impulse Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; In Like the pain in a passionate note Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, Shall lose all Beauty in the end, Have perished in ruinous gardens fair But in thine arms, Myrrhiline, Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, In their hidden othertime long fled. Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. All night in worship and in love I lay; Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, The idol in my shrine of ebony, Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; In endless repose; In life’s dead close; In its dearth; Passing in pain; In the stirless dust; 117.9 012.15 067.15 071.5 120.7 082.7 096.52 074.8 083.2 001.3 001.13 003.9 003.17 003.25 003.27 003.30 003.31 003.33 003.34 004.5 004.8 004.11 004.59 004.80 006.1 006.4 006.11 006.19 007.5 007.11 007.12 007.38 007.59 008.7 008.10 009.2 009.4 009.12 009.14 009.20 I They dwell in dying Mandrikor They dwell in wasteland and in night. Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge And in the waters saw my own face drown, And in their solemn state, Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought And yet, in all my travels I could only find I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; Nothing in all the universe is left for me, In vain for peace. He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep He sought the infinite in life, but now In night. A dreamer in eternity, Who asked and answered in a breath The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: The rapturous music poured in lyric streams In the glade. I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; You flare up in the all-consuming flame, Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, A rapture in the night, In the breathless, waiting morn; With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. His cosmic challenge in an alien world. And wander in far lands and seas, alone, That in the later days a boy would come, In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. Was there a goddess in the days of old, Of lizard-gods in Jupiter, 191 010.1 010.5 011.4 011.6 011.13 011.24 012.14 012.21 012.30 012.52 013.3 013.9 013.11 013.15 013.17 013.26 013.32 014.2 014.4 014.8 014.12 014.34 015.2 015.13 015.14 015.15 015.28 015.30 015.40 015.42 015.44 015.46 017.5 017.11 017.16 018.2 018.12 020.7 021.2 021.6 022.10 024.3 024.4 024.14 025.3 026.2 026.14 027.1 030.6 192 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Fermented in a wizard’s tomb. I have wandered in spirit, I have dwelt in the palace In your eyes, there is rapture In your lips that were tender In the soft, first capture. In a madness it has perished, Shall I wander in the hollows Or be bathed in new glory, All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, We buried her in the solemn fall We shivered in the quiet air, I sought it in far lands of timeless travel I sought, but sought in vain. And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; In continents and islands that are sunken, In constellations now to space-dust shrunken And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, In those mysterious lands and alien places I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem To be, I thought to find in nearer faces In eerie borderlands I vainly waited In shadow-ruled dominions darkly fated I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; And when in closer human haunts I tired, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, In search of something lost, but never near it; In separate deaths, so long, She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases Her loveliness in poetry lies never. Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, Should love be told in brede or breve? Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Was the tribute then given in vain? In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, 030.20 033.2 033.7 033.18 033.19 033.20 033.22 033.25 033.29 034.10 034.11 035.1 035.5 036.1 036.8 036.10 036.20 036.21 036.23 036.25 036.30 036.45 036.46 036.47 036.49 036.51 036.54 036.55 037.2 037.4 039.23 041.7 041.15 042.7 042.14 043.4 043.13 043.15 043.18 043.22 043.26 044.1 044.4 044.5 I The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, In night’s eternal pall. In search of closed escapes. All things died in my black might, Fourth was I in the coloured host, All his great love will end in me, In my design; In whose oblivion we shall meet; In the dark sea-grave. In the streets now covered deep, In the depths of gloomy murk: In the distance sank the coast in the dank “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng And years of striving in one moment ended. Unless in deeper love both are combined; Then live! Live in this dual love, partake In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth In your steps on the wakened ways of earth Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. That has no counterpart in lands of time And in her movements, languid charms abide. In my tomb beneath the ground, In my grave beneath my mound. In dissolution’s rot. Around, In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled I lie in my last sleep; In ecstasy to reap In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep Their festful riot in my rotting heap. Or in my dead flesh foul to float, And rotten in each swelling pore, In all the years by time begun, And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time, Not a creature lived in all the land, And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds The rush of waves that seek in vain Till at last, in her caverned halls 193 044.6 045.12 045.16 046.7 046.26 046.43 046.44 046.46 047.5 047.34 047.38 048.9 049.17 051.7 051.25 051.29 051.35 051.43 051.45 051.47 051.51 051.56 053.3 053.5 054.17 054.18 054.20 054.23 054.33 054.37 054.39 054.41 054.44 054.49 055.6 056.8 057.1 057.6 057.7 057.12 059.3 059.4 059.5 059.12 059.15 060.9 060.12 060.18 060.21 194 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, They are curious things that hide in the woods While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned She will go in the cold moonlight To her tryst she will go in the night, She will halt in a secret place But she, in decadent fall, And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration And in their solemn state Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; In my domain alone you’ll capture For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, It fell in parts, and I was part of it. In darkness absolute, and listening hard, The substance of it in the long ago. Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. In that far, future time where I was fleeing The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints Oh little creature, lost in time and space, As if there never were an end in store. Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard What sight in later hours would haply greet For in the talons I was fast immured. As I remember, in my agony The answer came, where I in torment lay, Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, But when I passed and left them in their gloom, Though singly impotent, might be in mass And stare and stare in horror as I meet By bathing me in streams of molten lead. Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll In all this hideous land the only soul. My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. 060.24 061.1 061.3 061.5 061.7 062.1 062.9 063.11 065.1 065.3 065.9 065.23 066.2 066.5 067.14 067.21 067.30 067.48 070.9 070.14 071.13 071.14 072.3 072.8 073.2 073.14 074.2 075.8 075.11 075.14 076.1 076.11 076.12 076.13 077.1 078.7 079.1 079.6 079.8 080.9 080.13 081.10 081.13 082.7 083.13 084.4 085.3 085.6 085.10 I They caught me in the wasteland in the west. They caught me in the wasteland in the west. The dark, walled city slowly came in view, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, And in recurring deaths escape them never. In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, The unknown color hostile in pursuit And I in all that solitude lie slain. In silence absolute the lifeless land Of bird and fish in nodules like a band The waters mounted in one surge whose swell Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; I heard alone the surging tides in motion. And in the fading vision of my sleep I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan And indolently languish in her languorous Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above I only find more ennui in philosophies, Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, Red roses in the overflowing wine. Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. I only know she died in Mytilene. Duty, in her lips caressing! I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; In the mystical burning pallor of the moon I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, In gummy cloths of long and human hair. Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. In all infinity was left no place Where Death in death all things did not immerse. Rise in the pale starlight, 195 086.1 086.1 086.9 087.1 087.14 088.10 088.12 091.8 093.1 093.8 094.5 094.13 094.14 095.12 096.8 096.10 096.11 096.16 096.17 096.20 096.47 096.61 096.80 096.89 096.91 097.8 098.8 099.4 099.8 099.14 100.8 101.1 101.2 101.4 101.6 101.23 101.27 101.28 103.1 104.8 105.1 105.4 106.2 106.4 106.13 106.14 107.7 107.8 109.14 196 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A music in the air, Its voice in one vast song Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping Than any known in lands that never were, And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her That’s natural artifice in you; the way Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace And I would let it in complete eclipse If in your head or heart, there were not room Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping I answer—if they love me in my fashion, In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, In Marmora. A ruby flares in the glistening sky, In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, In Marmora. In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, In Marmora. But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs In Marmora. In Marmora. On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, In Marmora. That dead body in the ooze. Feet are ended in a fen— An empress regnant in an empty tomb— The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, She liked to don herself in raiment Her own reflections in a mirror. A paragon, except in virtue, A beauty, save in soul and body, In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them in the rubble of defaced land In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them in the open and in hallways, In love bespoken, 109.22 109.34 111.4 111.6 112.11 113.3 113.7 114.4 114.7 115.13 116.4 117.14 119.4 119.12 124.7 125.4 125.5 125.6 125.8 125.9 125.12 125.15 125.16 125.20 125.22 125.24 126.12 126.15 127.18 128.3 128.5 128.12 128.25 128.26 129.6 129.13 130.1 130.7 130.17 130.20 131.1 131.5 131.6 131.7 131.12 131.13 131.15 132.2 I In bond unbroken, I am mist in midnight hollow, I am dust in cosmic outways resting, Of infant in the crib I am instant lost in time, I am atom lost in space, In aeons closes In endless deep But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; And to the students in my classes, And in my greatest bliss I am Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, In their ideal, idyllic college, And in this pedagogic cloister, And perfect students, all in rhythm, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Emily Post, and thieves in state; In front or behind, Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why Now in the mind come messages unspoken, Inbetween But inbetween; whose phosphorescent glow, Incantation Till thus, from incantation and invoking, Incense Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Inch And widening inch by inch along the floor Increase Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Increasing Increasing, spreading more and ever more Incubi And incubi avidly waiting to take Indestructible A savage, indestructible enemy. Indolently And indolently languish in her languorous Induce Mobbed him to induce him; Ineffable We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble Infant Of infant in the crib Inferno Inferno, to the waves 197 132.4 133.21 133.24 133.44 133.51 133.52 133.60 133.67 134.2 134.10 134.11 134.22 135.9 137.7 137.9 138.11 138.19 138.23 138.27 141.1 141.7 141.10 141.17 141.20 142.5 144.3 147.2 147.8 147.10 075.4 068.8 096.25 078.3 043.28 078.6 038.7 082.8 096.10 140.10 003.31 133.44 048.14 198 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Infinite He sought the infinite in life, but now Among the greater infinite he quests, The luminous shadow of the infinite, Infinity The guessless riddle of infinity. Beyond the soaring clouds’ infinity; In all infinity was left no place Inflicted Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. Inherit Of the gods, I inherit That doth the icon and the dream inherit, There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; Inhuman Yet twined around me with inhuman force. Ink Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, Inner Of inner ecstasy and exaltation And slowly paces to an inner hall, A glow that develops and flows from the inner being The inner beauty I more deeply care Innocence And thus preserved her innocence. Insane As fearful as the haunts of the insane. Insatiate And I was more insatiate with satiation, Inscrutable We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, Inspiring You have never been inspiring to my pen. Instant I am instant lost in time, Instead Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, Instead, they sound like Major Hooples Instruction Personal instruction. Intended The years away intended, but for leaping Intent What shape of evil? What its foul intent? Interest Now no things interest me, Intermingled The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. Into Into the shadowland I made my way Descending into midnight depths that lurked Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, And into more than light, to something wholly Till beauty into perfect beauty swoons; Like a mist that fades into sodden skies And languid, warming into life; no dread Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go Intolerable At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, The intolerable sanctity of sin; Intoxicate I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, 014.4 014.5 034.5 014.26 037.10 107.7 024.4 033.4 051.48 118.1 074.14 125.21 068.11 069.10 110.3 114.11 128.40 070.3 007.25 112.7 135.6 133.51 025.1 138.3 140.4 119.5 091.2 096.3 007.4 011.1 011.19 051.10 051.11 051.53 063.13 075.6 089.14 096.97 003.21 007.10 043.26 I With power he grew intoxicate, Intoxicated Intoxicated with thy loveliness, Intoxicating For one intoxicating night were mine. Invade Sucking sounds invade the night, Invading see Space-Invading Invention Peopled with ghosts of their invention, Invisible And sprites invisible attend the meeting, Invitations That she had always invitations, Invoking Till thus, from incantation and invoking, Inward Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, Ironic I thought ironic laughter passed me by. Irons They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; Is Is the voice of Beauty that dies. Oh, spring is gone And summer is fled, And the wind is blowing cold. Autumn is old Oh, spring is gone And summer is fled, And the wind is blowing cold. As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; For a little while, our life is bright, For a little while, there is light, Life is the gift to a slave. Is whispered by the sad wind sighing The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, The tale is told of years of long ago. But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, But all is mute forevermore. Though nothing visible is there For all is dead, and all is still, The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; Nothing in all the universe is left for me, Whose dream of old is gone Is night. A frantic whisper with the wind is blended There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; Pan is gone. And find that what I thought so great is but For ever his heart is filled with yearning, But only and ever his flesh is burning, And her body is bare. The table is spread and the flagon red 199 046.29 008.1 007.20 126.9 138.14 051.38 128.18 068.8 081.3 089.13 085.8 084.1 001.14 002.1 002.2 002.7 002.10 002.31 002.32 002.35 003.34 004.31 004.32 004.38 004.62 004.68 007.48 007.61 008.13 010.4 010.6 010.13 013.2 013.26 014.13 014.15 015.43 015.46 015.48 016.3 018.9 018.11 019.8 022.5 200 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— I do not know. There is an ache that fills There is a language I would fain employ, Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks Thy face is aureoled Is such as gods impart To the star that is fairest; There is magic, there is splendor In your eyes, there is rapture Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. Our thoughts will be more sad than death is The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; So fair she is that beauty hath no graces Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Her step is lighter than the summer breezes Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Not always empty is a shell, Is love so limited, pray tell? Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? As the stars are, my love is eternal. And its death is the death of the world. Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? And the form that it covers is thine. There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. He is mine. But the gulf is cold Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— And of no emptiness is unforgetful. All else is still the realm around, Stained is the coffin floor But now that time is gone of yore Is it the willows shiver and sigh? And the worm is king for eternity, For the tale is the grave’s. All her dreaming, raptured face is white, 022.7 027.9 028.1 028.3 031.5 032.3 032.7 033.12 033.17 033.18 037.14 039.4 040.3 041.1 041.3 041.5 042.3 042.9 042.15 042.16 042.19 043.3 043.4 043.20 043.23 043.24 043.25 043.31 043.36 044.1 044.2 044.5 044.7 044.8 046.48 047.16 050.12 051.21 053.17 054.46 054.51 056.10 057.19 057.25 058.3 I There is pressure on her blood-red lips, No other form is near, The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; Is the dream as it dies. The world is an opium-dream; The world of which no tale is handed down. It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear How strange. How strangely empty is the room. This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? But ennui still is mine. Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Though none is lovelier I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. There is no picture of her dear dead face, The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; Life is a dream between two deaths; a blind The dying wonder of the world that is, And found, the one reality is Death. And find, the one reality is Death. And all that ever will be known, is Death. Although my flesh with many knives is slit. O Love, my world is pouring Is it the glow so magically bringing It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. Oh love, it is enough that I may be There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; A counterpart of what is still to be? Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. For the grain that is reaped Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. Mysterious as her sunken palace is, This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her 201 058.5 058.10 061.1 063.14 064.1 068.14 070.1 077.6 077.14 082.2 083.3 083.6 096.17 096.24 096.25 096.51 096.67 098.6 099.4 099.10 101.7 101.17 101.18 101.26 102.1 102.7 102.13 102.15 102.20 103.4 109.33 110.11 110.15 111.7 111.9 111.11 112.15 113.14 114.13 118.1 118.10 120.6 120.8 123.8 125.21 127.5 127.12 129.1 202 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! I hear them when no human voice is talking But alas! Your name is Myrtle, And other such-like things as that is Which is better than all, Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? Isdem And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” Island Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; Islands In continents and islands that are sunken, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, Isles Her coral isles and shadowy pearls Ispahan Delights of Ispahan. Somewhere past Ispahan. It How it howls and whoops How it wildly swoops And it cries As it stirs the dust And bitter all the poison that it brings; And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness What did it matter a thousand years ago What will it matter a thousand years from now It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, A star they knew before it came. In a madness it has perished, I sought it in far lands of timeless travel I have not found it sleeping or awaking. I will not find it till all things shall cease, In search of something lost, but never near it; Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Was it only for darkness to blind me, Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly And the form that it covers is thine. It knew me not from all the rest, Till darkness falls—it never will— 129.12 129.15 129.16 131.3 135.10 137.15 143.6 147.7 138.22 131.2 036.21 130.15 141.15 060.4 096.12 096.102 002.12 002.14 002.20 002.23 007.62 015.7 015.19 015.33 015.35 026.1 026.5 027.12 027.13 029.12 029.13 030.44 033.22 036.1 036.57 036.58 037.4 043.3 043.4 043.7 043.20 043.25 043.33 043.36 049.20 055.17 I Is it the willows shiver and sigh? And it ruled alone. Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, All it would find was a plump drowned rat It reigned on its multiple thrones. Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes Is the dream as it dies. It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, It was my own; my own face showed that hue, It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long It fell in parts, and I was part of it. Had I, although I knew on what it fed, The substance of it in the long ago. Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear Make this your home for I will make it yours; Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, It merely hinted of the coming week. A glowing form, it drifted on a course I must, for it arose, its mass dividing No hint of what it once resembled, save And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, And still it followed, still I heard it gain I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, And burning eyes along each limb. It spun It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried They know that it will take me years to die, At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: Is it the glow so magically bringing It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, Oh love, it is enough that I may be There will be none with you to help you share it, And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only You will become? It seems so strange to me The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; And it only rhymes with turtle...... 203 056.10 057.5 057.12 057.14 057.15 057.20 063.1 063.14 070.1 072.10 073.2 073.5 073.9 073.14 075.7 075.8 075.10 076.11 077.6 077.10 078.5 078.8 083.3 084.14 088.4 089.8 090.7 090.12 091.5 091.9 091.12 091.14 093.12 103.3 105.12 106.4 110.11 110.15 111.9 111.11 114.13 118.3 118.5 118.6 118.7 118.12 122.5 135.9 135.11 204 Its A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Who liked it above or below, And its faintest breath The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, Its white life away; In its dearth; The listening ear; its tones are softly heard That brought to Mirtylon its doom, And find its cosmic burial Its equal can confess. Through its valleys and its mountains And the heart holds its ravage, And its death is the death of the world. With its drapery hiding all wholly, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. Where its buried cities sleep And its glory far was known, Fronds from out its temples rise; Of its cold sea-tomb. Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, It reigned on its multiple thrones. Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? While its pale eyes kept watching patiently I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, What nameless hunter searching for its meat? Whence came that unknown color? Was its source I must, for it arose, its mass dividing And of its face no vestige could be seen, And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, For I was its, that horror from the dead. What shape of evil? What its foul intent? It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. Oblivion had laid its deathless curse Its voice in one vast song We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace Yet would it be no Eden to entice. Nor I desire it if it held not you; 144.2 002.17 004.68 007.35 009.8 009.12 028.6 030.18 030.39 032.10 033.1 033.34 043.24 043.35 044.8 047.4 047.14 047.22 057.10 057.13 057.14 057.20 059.10 073.3 075.2 075.14 076.11 079.3 088.1 089.8 090.5 090.6 090.8 090.13 090.14 091.2 091.14 093.5 094.13 095.14 101.8 106.14 107.1 109.34 112.3 114.3 115.11 115.12 I It’s Itself I’ve Ivory And I would let it in complete eclipse Its superficial vesture whose arrays And through its darkened window see no sky: On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair I still have far to go, it’s late. Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please It’s the break of day, It’s a quarter of twelve, I know that death itself will never bring release; Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Of death itself, there now was left no trace, That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, Jades exquisite, delicately carved ivory, 205 115.13 117.3 118.2 125.19 125.22 134.5 067.52 096.64 143.4 143.10 013.30 029.8 034.15 091.7 107.3 025.2 050.5 008.6 096.14 J Jaded Jades Janitors Jar Jars Jasmine Jasper Jet Jeweled Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; Jades exquisite, delicately carved ivory, The janitors would drip with knowledge, Or any other words to jar ’em; The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above And all the little jeweled blades of grass Over the jeweled grass, Jewelled The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, Jewels Strange wondrous jewels and diadems Strange wondrous jewels and diadems Imbedded witches’ jewels mystical, Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. And think the words they drop are jewels. Join And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. Joining Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Journey Begins the journey long. And listen always as I journey on alone. Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Journey’s Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, Joy Youth and Song and Joy; Let us have joy while we may; When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, Pass, with all joy that passes, The vanished joy And every sound a thing of lyric joy. Great joy he had. From each of us he took his joy, The vanished joy Though they, with cruel joy, had given me Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! Joyful The city rang with joyful call Joys For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; And all love’s joys that were. 013.25 096.14 138.20 137.12 129.9 096.26 101.24 096.47 082.3 109.10 044.6 012.24 067.24 127.8 137.18 138.2 004.43 006.23 076.14 146.7 096.96 131.16 146.7 049.26 004.30 004.50 005.5 009.13 012.33 028.4 046.8 046.37 067.33 084.12 096.11 098.2 098.7 049.2 003.18 007.26 096.54 J Juice Jupiter Just Joys that pass and youth too fleet, For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Of lizard-gods in Jupiter, Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Just presences, unseen, unknown For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— He had dreams and thoughts of just Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; 207 100.5 022.7 030.6 127.2 010.22 022.7 046.15 115.8 K Keep For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, Only fishes keep a seeming At me and slyly chuckle while they keep You’ve come again. You keep me company here, To keep me company lest I go mad: Will atom keep Keeper I am wastrel, never keeper, Keeping Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping Kept And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring While its pale eyes kept watching patiently Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Kill That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. Killed The things that mirthful wizards killed Kind I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” King see also Worm-King And the worm is king for eternity, A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, For Death the Conqueror at last was king; On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines Kingdom What though one kingdom each of you forsake, A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, KingdomsUpon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. Kingly Await thy kingly head. Await your kingly head. Kings Of buried kings, and empires perilous; Have seen the fall of many kings, Kiss The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips A maiden’s kiss She has yielded to the kiss of night, For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. Kissed By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed Kisses see also Fever-Kisses Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, Kissing Made for love, made for kissing; Kneeling Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, Knees Especially when their knees are pretty. 007.13 047.19 054.40 077.2 103.12 133.66 133.34 119.1 015.5 036.31 073.3 078.5 010.16 030.47 133.3 139.1 057.19 076.5 107.9 125.19 051.31 053.20 096.13 107.14 012.16 067.16 026.11 030.10 003.6 004.73 016.4 058.1 115.14 101.8 003.13 027.7 096.46 100.2 096.80 138.8 K Knell see also Death-Knell Time has tolled a solemn knell, From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. Knells That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. Knew For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, A star they knew before it came. But we turned too late and we knew our fate It knew me not from all the rest, Antistrophes that seven before him knew, The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; Had I, although I knew on what it fed, For my escape I knew what I must pay: Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, Only do we who knew you feel the source, Knives Although my flesh with many knives is slit. Knocked I knocked upon the portal till with clang Knoll I saw the whispering knoll. Upon the whispering knoll. Knotted see Deep-Knotted Knotty Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung Know In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Thou art loveliest of the things I know; Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, All things that thou wouldst know. Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; I know that death itself will never bring release; He walks where none can know or see, I do not know. There is an ache that fills I know this all I ever will be knowing: For we will know how love Her garments only know what curves and hollows So few the days, so much that one could know, All things that you would know. Death: We will. We will, and I know when. For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know I know not whether she was slave or queen; I only know she died in Mytilene. The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; They know that it will take me years to die, I scarce could know the evil that I did; I know there are no princesses, but you 209 047.39 094.4 080.2 007.15 030.44 048.3 049.20 068.7 073.1 075.7 086.3 138.12 146.8 103.4 081.1 045.4 045.20 093.9 003.17 004.40 006.14 007.55 012.42 013.22 013.30 014.9 027.9 036.63 039.5 041.11 050.1 067.42 067.55 074.3 077.8 087.13 096.67 096.100 097.5 099.5 099.11 099.14 101.26 103.3 106.11 113.1 210 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Love comes. I know that I shall never be Content to know the image of the dream, And you will never know what years drift by. And waited, wondered, though I did not know... Or know the song Where none could know or share. Though I know that you are pretty, I know all Latin stems and nouns, The authors’ names I know by rote, They also ought to know their Caesar, “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” Alone know why, There was a young woman I know As you begin your final travel, know I take the bridgeway you already know. Knowing Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. And knowing that my quest at last must falter I know this all I ever will be knowing: I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, With wonder past all knowing, I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, An emptiness not knowing you are there. Knowledge With knowledge of the carrion Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. The janitors would drip with knowledge, Known Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; As thou hast never known; I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, Have known the fungi of the moon, And thou hast known the azure mist And its glory far was known, Of the splendor known no more, As you have never known, Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. And all that ever will be known, is Death. We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: Than any known in lands that never were, And more for beauty, only known to me. Knows For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; The sum of all man knows, the sum of all Who knows when I first began? Kohl The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, 113.9 113.11 118.4 122.8 133.71 134.6 135.4 137.3 137.5 137.23 139.2 143.8 144.1 146.2 147.14 003.30 008.14 036.15 036.63 085.13 109.25 110.5 118.8 030.31 073.4 137.18 138.20 003.38 012.2 013.13 013.23 025.2 030.2 030.17 047.14 047.18 067.2 099.4 102.20 112.13 113.3 116.14 003.18 102.16 133.58 096.44 L La And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul Labors As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, Labyrinth You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth Labyrinths To chart the labyrinths of long assailing; Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Lace On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Lacked She said she lacked experience; Lacking All lacking, and all gain. Ladies With scholastic ladies, Lady My lady hath two lovely lips, Lagoon The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, By a cypress-veiled lagoon. Laid At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, Oblivion had laid its deathless curse Lain Beautiful youths have long lain dead Lair Part human creatures creeping from their lair. From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? Lairs As I went onward toward those upper lairs. But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs Lake Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; Land No traveler crosses now the land, They passed the land where flowers gnaw She scans the shadows of her land, In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time, Not a creature lived in all the land, In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? In all this hideous land the only soul. In silence absolute the lifeless land I hear them in the rubble of defaced land Of unknown timeless land; Lands see also Outer-Lands Of all my spectral lands, And wander in far lands and seas, alone, Have travelled lands Hesperian, I sought it in far lands of timeless travel In those mysterious lands and alien places That has no counterpart in lands of time Of all my timeless lands, 096.79 073.10 051.33 031.10 036.62 058.9 128.38 096.72 140.6 100.1 105.3 126.2 003.21 094.6 107.1 004.27 072.4 089.13 105.8 074.4 125.15 125.21 131.14 010.17 030.23 055.9 057.1 057.6 059.12 085.6 093.1 131.5 134.3 012.19 025.3 030.3 036.1 036.45 053.3 067.19 212 Lanes Language A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Than any known in lands that never were, The lands no traveller ever found on earth; And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Seaweed fills deserted lanes; The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; There is a language I would fain employ, Languid The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, And in her movements, languid charms abide. And languid, warming into life; no dread Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease Languish And indolently languish in her languorous Languorous And indolently languish in her languorous Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, Lantern Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. Lap Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. Larger Now wherefor do you make this larger room Last All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, And now at last I crown me with a coronal At last are wise A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— He stood at last before the citadel Until the last oblivion. Whence the last birds are winging? And knowing that my quest at last must falter I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, I lie in my last sleep; Till at last, in her caverned halls And when at last my captors bore me through How glad I was that I at last awoke! For Death the Conqueror at last was king; My life-illusion has at last been broken, Lasting Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, Lasts And no love lasts if love be only mind, Late But we turned too late and we knew our fate I still have far to go, it’s late. Lately That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? Later Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, That in the later days a boy would come, To perish when my later footsteps came; What sight in later hours would haply greet Building on to what goal later, Latest Her latest lover’s love was such Latin I know all Latin stems and nouns, And any Latin phrase can quote, 113.3 116.12 130.20 141.20 047.23 128.24 131.2 028.1 011.18 053.5 075.6 096.65 096.10 096.10 127.13 131.8 075.11 118.9 007.39 013.7 014.29 015.47 024.10 030.52 033.28 036.15 046.6 054.33 060.21 086.12 104.14 107.9 120.1 067.49 051.23 048.3 067.52 101.12 007.45 026.2 036.52 079.6 133.62 128.17 137.3 137.6 L Laugh Her laugh was like a silver bell. Laughing And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, Laughter For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song.... There will spring no laughter Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; I thought ironic laughter passed me by. That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. Laurel Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, Laves Or rests where an ocean current laves Lawn No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. She will rest on the lawn; Lay All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night in worship and in love I lay; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled The sun lay warm along our way, The sun lay warm along our way. Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, The answer came, where I in torment lay, I found no door, and when all hope lay dead There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied And naked lay the true design, the trick. Lead And the skies are lead, By bathing me in streams of molten lead. Leaden Discovering there an equal leaden hue, Leaf Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken Leafless Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Leafy A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation League Caught me with safety but a league away. Leagues For many a thousand leagues around Of purple leagues, violet hippogriffs Lean With flapping tatters and long talons lean. With flapping tatters and long talons lean. Leap I feel the worms that leap Leaping Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping The years away intended, but for leaping Learn And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” Learned Expound a learned fourth dimension Learning Such dazzling stores of useless learning! Least Even the least. Beauty must die. 213 128.33 051.39 060.1 040.5 049.22 049.28 052.5 081.12 085.8 129.4 068.1 060.10 040.4 044.2 065.18 007.1 007.37 007.38 007.51 007.63 048.19 049.8 049.14 054.28 080.13 088.7 095.5 121.12 002.6 084.4 069.11 006.10 110.7 093.5 066.7 086.2 010.9 071.6 029.4 090.4 054.36 015.19 112.9 119.5 138.22 138.13 138.38 004.34 214 Leave Leaven Leaves Leaving Led Leered Leering Left Leg Legend A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei All the least lines that spelled Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering To capture moods that change or leave; Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried And leave behind me all the weary works of man, Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, And the lotus of their leaven, Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, The dry dead leaves Die, with the leaves that drift But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; Past them the leopards led me on and on He leered so vilely, Horror could not save The leering of a huge and sightless eye. Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering For none are left the tale to tell. Nothing in all the universe is left for me, Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, We left her staring at the musty pall, And left her lovely body to oblivion; We left her far more quiet body lying there: We left no mark to show her grave, We only left her body lying still and deep; We left her only to the waiting earth that gave But when I passed and left them in their gloom, They left me morsels, curious and queer, They left to me my eyes, so I could stare They left me also rotten corpses there And then they left me, lonely. lying where Of death itself, there now was left no trace, In all infinity was left no place Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, I found my leg become a hellish root, Where legend prophesied divinity, The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, To poppy legend olden. The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? Upon my tomb, this legend bold: 132.5 006.21 042.11 051.5 051.33 093.12 096.98 146.1 033.6 001.12 002.15 009.17 051.19 062.9 063.12 111.4 147.2 147.11 031.5 111.2 081.9 029.7 083.14 006.21 010.24 013.26 031.6 035.3 035.6 035.7 035.9 035.10 035.11 081.13 087.11 103.9 103.11 103.13 107.3 107.7 142.8 082.11 037.12 134.1 134.7 134.13 134.18 134.19 137.26 L Legends Heard legends not by earthly voices told, Legions By the legions of the pest. Legs Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Leman A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Lend So shalt thou thy beauty lend Length At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. Lengthen Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, Lengthening The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, Lent Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Leopards Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang Past them the leopards led me on and on Lesbian Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, Lesbos As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Less And the living walked less like men And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, And life less like a tomb. Lesser She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. Lesson With each lesson came complete Lessons Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. Lest Lest dawn and barren ashes enter in. I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. To keep me company lest I go mad: Let Then let us love tonight, Let us have joy while we may; Let us give over ourselves to delight, Let us forget the passing of years, Let us forget vain sorrow and tears So let us love, Myrrhiline, To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, And I would let it in complete eclipse Lethal By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, Lethal waters sleep and swoon Lethean Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; Lichens Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes Lidded see Heavy-Lidded, Smoky-Lidded Lids Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, Lie Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; Thou shalt lie. Lie only shards of that dread doom The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; Six feet deep I lie; I lie in my last sleep; On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Whatever on the other side should lie, 215 122.11 048.20 092.6 023.7 004.12 079.10 096.58 074.10 091.6 081.5 081.9 007.6 019.2 003.34 048.6 096.29 096.30 129.12 140.3 138.28 007.12 092.11 103.12 004.49 004.50 004.51 004.52 004.53 004.71 022.9 051.61 115.13 036.50 126.1 012.21 067.21 010.2 127.7 003.30 004.24 010.15 040.1 054.2 054.33 058.9 083.12 216 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And I in all that solitude lie slain. And all around, the weary corpses lie; But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs Lies And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder Her loveliness in poetry lies never. Mark where dead Atlantis lies Lies upon the dead drowned men. Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned The dust of centuries lies on her head; No voice remains to tell me where she lies, Surely the loveliness that men say lies She hated all lies, save her own, A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in Life Even as Song and Life and Love, Beauty and Love and Life must die, For a little while, our life is bright, Life is the gift to a slave. And weariness of life oppresses me; Its white life away; The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; He sought the infinite in life, but now Monotony of life an empty show? And farther still when life was yet to come, No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, With wine of life. Wine of life and of death I have drunken, And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, But they whose life was barren are most fretful, Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, But phantoms; life and death part each of other; And languid, warming into life; no dread Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; And life less like a tomb. Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Life is a dream between two deaths; a blind Are merely words that mean no more than life. The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum Upon all things of life and time and space; Not anywhere was life nor anything, I am all life that springs anew, His life, his love, his song; For they are life and love to me, Finding that life from end to end Life-Illusion My life-illusion has at last been broken, 091.8 103.2 125.15 007.43 019.2 027.13 037.11 041.15 047.25 047.36 054.19 099.2 099.9 119.3 128.29 129.13 004.2 004.29 004.31 004.38 007.54 009.8 013.2 014.4 026.4 036.26 036.38 039.12 043.29 051.12 051.17 051.62 070.12 075.6 076.10 096.2 096.30 097.3 102.1 102.4 102.18 107.2 107.12 133.31 134.21 137.17 142.7 120.1 L Lifeless Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. What followed me across the lifeless plain? In silence absolute the lifeless land Lifeless Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. Life’s In life’s dead close; Lifetime Beyond the lifetime of the sun. Lift He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; Lifted It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Lifts She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Light For a little while, there is light, He strove to bring a light. For ever mounting past the realm of light, Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, So little light, so many corridors, Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, And into more than light, to something wholly With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Never a light to mark the trail A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation And when my steed permitted me to light, And light that never shone And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: The fall of footsteps light and pantherine The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Lighter Her step is lighter than the summer breezes Lighting Lighting swamps and tarns unholy Lightly There touches his body lightly a shiver, She slumbers lightly here, By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed And wood-winds lightly grieve Lights see also Witch-Lights The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred Like see also Rat-Like, Such-Like Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Like the pain in a passionate note Like the voiceless cry Like a perishing star, Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies 217 081.4 091.1 093.1 116.8 009.4 055.20 113.10 124.13 091.14 094.7 129.1 066.3 004.32 014.3 024.9 042.7 042.7 050.2 051.10 051.11 051.46 051.57 056.6 066.7 071.12 109.27 110.4 111.2 112.2 122.1 134.11 146.7 041.5 126.5 018.5 058.2 101.8 109.3 034.1 074.6 001.1 001.3 001.5 001.8 001.9 001.11 001.13 218 Liked Lilies Liliths Lily Limb A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, Where night was like a shroud before an altar Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, Like a drinker of chloral I dream, Like a flame, like a splendor supernal, And conceals like a curtain the shrine, I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, My royal robes like a purple ghost Yet we like a woman came to cloy. And the living walked less like men Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes Like the ghost of an echoing note Like the rustle of small Like the sound of the sea or the rain, Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Like a mist that fades into sodden skies The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; A metal titan shapen like a cone, A tolling like a myriad decibels Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, Like me uncertain of their final fate Of bird and fish in nodules like a band The tolling came like measures for a spell. And life less like a tomb. And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse Like cardinal numbers adding without end; For I give love like sips of precious wine Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Her laugh was like a silver bell. Like a steak half roasted there. Instead, they sound like Major Hooples She liked the texture of a lily, She liked to don herself in raiment Who liked it above or below, Where the lilies bloom above; Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, Only spectral lilies grow Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, see also Tiger-Lily Lily and poppy and rose are gone, She liked the texture of a lily, And burning eyes along each limb. It spun 003.39 028.3 036.13 043.9 043.10 043.21 043.34 045.3 046.27 046.38 048.6 058.7 059.13 063.1 063.3 063.5 063.9 063.11 063.13 073.1 076.6 080.3 082.4 082.6 085.5 087.3 093.8 094.8 096.30 096.46 107.5 115.2 119.13 127.2 128.33 136.8 138.3 128.1 128.5 144.2 004.26 006.1 047.30 006.10 004.57 128.1 091.12 L Limbed see White-Limbed Limbs There where the gnarled limbs twisted Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know Limited Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Limits Within the limits of his nose, Line see Pipe-Line Lineaments My own the lineaments that seemed to be Lines With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace All the least lines that spelled Linger Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Lingering Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, Lipped see Poppy-Lipped Lips Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Yea, thy lips that softly smile, The lips of the singers of Greece are still, The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips With lips that to thine own lips burn, With lips that to thine own lips burn, The lips of her of Troy, The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, In your lips that were tender There is pressure on her blood-red lips, The lips of Egypt, Troy, It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. 219 045.1 046.47 051.46 077.6 078.4 089.9 099.5 042.3 042.9 042.15 042.19 138.25 073.6 025.9 132.5 007.59 146.3 006.21 051.61 003.13 003.14 003.23 003.35 004.5 004.16 004.64 004.68 004.73 004.77 004.77 012.31 012.48 012.53 015.23 019.1 027.6 027.13 029.13 033.19 058.5 067.31 091.14 220 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! My lady hath two lovely lips, Duty, in her lips caressing! By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover Of lips too tender; your precise array. For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. Lips parting and closing over the draught her Liquescence In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep Liquid Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, Lissome And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, List Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list Listen I merely listened, as I listen still, I listen, but I do not hear them fall, And listen always as I journey on alone. Listened I merely listened, as I listen still, We listened to the strange rain We listened to these strange tall dreams Listening The listening ear; its tones are softly heard In darkness absolute, and listening hard, Listless Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting Lit Skeins of fluctuant color, lit Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. Lithe Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, With the lithe Persian, Little A little while, For a little while, our life is bright, For a little while, there is light, To watch a little creature pick So little, yet to do so well, So little light, so many corridors, And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Where the trees form a little dark room: Oh little creature, lost in time and space, Oh little creature, whether old or young, Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Unto my feet a little trickle crept And all the little jeweled blades of grass The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. The little gods then will tremble and waken The little gods will answer their elders and rise. 096.53 097.4 098.3 100.1 100.8 101.8 101.19 114.8 115.14 129.2 054.39 125.21 096.16 101.9 122.7 122.13 131.16 122.7 136.1 136.9 028.6 074.2 096.74 034.6 073.11 062.4 096.9 004.14 004.31 004.32 030.15 042.10 050.2 057.7 062.4 065.10 077.1 077.9 077.13 078.1 082.3 130.1 130.2 130.3 130.4 130.9 130.12 L The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; Littler I watched on earth the littler things around; Live We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy Only now do we live. You only live when all worth living’s lost. Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Then live! Live in this dual love, partake Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, A million million men will live and pass, Still live a hundred years ago, Lived I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; That once a poet lived and loved and died, And they who merely lived are first to sigh: There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne Not a creature lived in all the land, Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, A million million men have lived and passed, We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, Livid Of desolation and the livid dead, Beneath twin moons of livid red. Living I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper And the living walked less like men Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead And there were living, ancient mummies bound Blessed be the living for they will be dead. From the fury of living. I am the master of each living thing, Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Living’s You only live when all worth living’s lost. Lizard-Gods Of lizard-gods in Jupiter, Lo Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, Load I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Loathing With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? Locked Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. Logs Rise from half-decaying logs Loins Over his loins his deep eyes rove. Loll Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll Lolled In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled Lone Through lone 221 130.13 130.17 130.18 036.44 003.27 004.70 017.20 043.16 051.29 051.50 051.54 097.3 102.14 138.17 013.29 026.6 051.18 057.2 057.6 057.12 102.12 112.5 017.3 030.36 003.7 006.11 048.6 072.7 075.3 104.7 108.2 123.12 133.2 146.7 017.20 030.6 007.45 124.8 026.8 055.16 126.7 018.4 085.3 054.23 002.29 222 Lonely Long A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, Desolate, lonely, and far, And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, A lonely traveler on another star; The lonely, lovely sea-maidens call, Winging your vast way lonely and alone Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste Where breakers and lonely waters roar, Desolate, lonely, and far And then they left me, lonely. lying where And it may be that you will find it lonely, Oh, the nights are long And the long nights near Oh, the nights are long And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; Beautiful youths have long lain dead The years of the past have long since flown, In their hidden othertime long fled. Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The tale is told of years of long ago. Forget, with the long, final forgetting The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; When down the hillside came a long, low crying, All night long. For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? And I, who long for fairer melodies With flapping tatters and long talons lean. To chart the labyrinths of long assailing; With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; So long, so far, so distant have you flown Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. In separate deaths, so long, So long ago. Each drunken reveller has long since gone; For a long and mystic sleep Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, Death: Not long, not long.... He wins the long awaited separation Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. 134.13 001.7 007.49 014.11 020.6 037.3 051.5 060.13 063.7 103.13 118.5 002.3 002.26 002.33 003.26 004.27 004.55 006.4 006.16 007.17 007.33 007.39 007.45 007.48 009.23 013.3 013.25 015.3 015.16 019.7 020.1 024.6 026.10 027.4 028.9 029.4 031.10 036.5 036.20 037.1 037.14 039.23 039.24 040.2 047.35 051.61 067.57 068.9 069.7 L It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long The substance of it in the long ago. Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since On long, metallic clang, the brazen door With flapping tatters and long talons lean. To every branch. The tree had long since died, Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Begins the journey long. Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. The maid I love was buried long ago; She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. In gummy cloths of long and human hair. Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, So long as there was never danger; They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Long-Dead Long-dead creatures murmur and sigh Longer It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— And longer ways before you yet to wander Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Longer blinder Longing Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; Longings My mind with longings for some ancient thing, Look Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, Looked But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, I looked across the great plain warily. And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, Loom For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom Loomed Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere Looms It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. Loosened And when the talons loosened, I could see Looted And looted fields; Lord A music-maker, lord of sorcery. Lordly Not a thing disputed the lordly worm Lore I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, Lose Shall lose all Beauty in the end, Lost Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. You only live when all worth living’s lost. In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, Shall even as my lost days be foredone, 223 073.9 075.8 076.10 081.2 090.4 093.10 096.52 096.96 097.5 099.1 099.8 104.8 105.9 128.14 130.19 141.19 125.7 027.13 037.9 091.6 133.38 019.5 027.10 006.10 037.14 120.2 029.12 034.16 082.5 090.12 116.5 011.2 092.1 070.1 079.11 039.9 113.12 057.11 003.29 036.38 004.11 006.5 006.24 017.20 026.14 028.13 031.12 224 Lostly Lotus Loud Love A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Where only courage of lost hope could ravel In search of something lost, but never near it; You will come back to me, lost lover, You will come back some day, lost lover, Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Lost Atlantis slumbers deep, Lost Atlantis slumbers well Before we had lost the shore. The face was lost and I had guessed Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, Oh little creature, lost in time and space, As of a lost and hungry child. Then die Were errors that have lost their hold on me. I am instant lost in time, I am atom lost in space, Restoring all things lost and small things broken. And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly And the lotus of their leaven, There was a sound, gigantically loud, Of our love. We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Even as Song and Life and Love, Even as one who loves thee, Love, By the girls they gave their love. Beauty and Love and Life must die, Then let us love tonight, So let us love, Myrrhiline, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; That love and passion weary all too soon. And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, All night in worship and in love I lay; But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, All things that thou dost love, I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Love and wine. Love, and Death are born. And how my love that burns herein so deep For we will know how love 034.15 036.3 037.4 039.7 039.19 045.10 046.39 047.1 047.40 048.4 049.18 059.15 077.1 089.7 120.14 133.51 133.52 147.12 045.15 033.6 106.5 003.16 003.31 003.33 003.37 004.2 004.3 004.28 004.29 004.49 004.71 007.14 007.16 007.19 007.28 007.33 007.38 007.41 007.53 007.61 012.41 013.17 013.18 015.24 021.8 031.11 039.5 L For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Has love become an aquarelle? Should love be told in brede or breve? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? For a love that was fleeting as day? In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Mine the love that can fade not or falter, As the stars are, my love is eternal. I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? On the nectar of love I have fed, Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, Once he was pale with love of me, We were the colours that his love All his great love will end in me, And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, No love endures if love be only passion And no love lasts if love be only mind, Unless in deeper love both are combined; Then live! Live in this dual love, partake A greater wealth your greater love assures Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, Than which no love can have supremer worth. Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, All things that you might love, With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. The maid I love was buried long ago; Made for love, made for kissing; Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, O Love, a flower closes O Love, my world is pouring 225 040.8 042.3 042.9 042.13 042.14 042.15 042.19 043.1 043.4 043.8 043.13 043.14 043.19 043.23 043.26 043.27 043.28 043.30 044.5 046.10 046.34 046.43 051.12 051.22 051.23 051.25 051.29 051.32 051.47 051.49 051.55 051.62 067.41 096.2 096.46 097.4 099.1 100.2 102.3 109.1 109.33 226 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei O Love, my heart adoring Binds you, O Love. Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, O Love, the world so shadowy and dim So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, These are the things I love you for: the gray These things I love, yet words can never tell Oh love, it is enough that I may be I love you for the charm earth gave to you, I love you for the realms of endless view, I love you for the beauty all can see, I answer—if they love me in my fashion, For I give love like sips of precious wine From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe Her latest lover’s love was such In love bespoken, His life, his love, his song; I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! For they are life and love to me, Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Returning humbly our own love whose force, Loved As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Hermaphroditus, loved and lover, That once a poet lived and loved and died, My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Love comes. I know that I shall never be She loved no man, so she would boast, She loved alone and loved she most She loved to play a dangerous game Lovelier Though none is lovelier A princess are, with beauty lovelier Loveliest Thou art loveliest of the things I know; The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; Loveliness Enigmatic loveliness of enigmatic figures, A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, Intoxicated with thy loveliness, Naught by thy loveliness 109.37 109.40 110.2 110.2 110.5 110.9 110.13 110.16 111.11 112.13 112.15 114.1 114.9 114.13 116.9 116.11 116.13 119.12 119.13 121.6 128.17 132.2 134.21 135.12 137.17 146.5 146.6 003.33 003.34 003.37 018.1 026.6 075.1 113.9 128.9 128.11 128.13 096.51 113.2 004.40 015.12 006.13 007.31 008.1 032.9 L Her loveliness in poetry lies never. For, and the loveliness you watch so well. Surely the loveliness that men say lies Lovely I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, Thy lovely face uplifted now, Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen Lovely as any girl the world has seen, The lonely, lovely sea-maidens call, Most lovely, half satanic, half divine, Did I a lovely deathless form enfold? And left her lovely body to oblivion; While maidens lovely, smiling, fair, My lady hath two lovely lips, So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace You are the fairest of the lovely whom Lover Hermaphroditus, loved and lover, You will come back to me, lost lover, You will come back some day, lost lover, Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! She had a lover for her wondrous grace; For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover I am not sorry to have been your lover, Lovers In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came Lover’s Her latest lover’s love was such Loves Even as one who loves thee, Love, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, Love’s Thy body fevered with love’s desire, And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, Love’s beauty and love’s torment and love’s fever-kisses, Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, To love’s sad paradise. And all love’s joys that were. Love-Sick And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, Loving Deep loving, dark thinking, Low When down the hillside came a long, low crying, And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. And only echo answer a low call. 227 041.15 114.12 119.3 003.1 004.18 008.9 008.11 020.6 027.2 027.8 035.6 049.11 100.1 114.3 116.1 018.1 039.7 039.19 051.27 098.3 099.13 101.19 120.9 043.13 043.15 128.15 128.17 004.3 043.15 051.24 004.7 007.9 007.21 007.22 007.32 007.41 096.42 096.54 007.9 123.14 015.3 015.5 056.2 082.4 122.12 228 Lowering A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei ‘Neath the lowering skies Lowly And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly Luminous The luminous shadow of the infinite, Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; Lunar Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells Lure Past golden poppy’s lure, Lured And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm Lurid Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. Luring Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, Lurk Where the strange sea-creatures lurk. Lurked Descending into midnight depths that lurked Luscious By the luscious curtains gleaming. Lush Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier Lust Thy terrible lust, Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, Lust, and the red, red wine! Lust, and the red, red wine! For green corpses he did lust, My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, Lute To a silent lute. Lutes The sound of perished lutes The sound of ancient lutes Lying Rest, with the dear things lying We left her far more quiet body lying there: We only left her body lying still and deep; He scans the regions lying all around, With only rotting corpses lying by, And then they left me, lonely. lying where And awful things were lying all around— Lyric Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, The rapturous music poured in lyric streams A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, And every sound a thing of lyric joy. Lyrical Once lyrical with pagan melody. 002.22 096.41 034.5 044.5 110.13 111.2 080.7 134.9 054.25 017.14 006.17 047.41 011.19 136.4 051.50 096.50 005.2 015.27 017.17 023.4 023.8 046.13 046.22 004.67 012.35 067.35 009.3 035.7 035.10 069.5 103.7 103.13 104.2 007.22 015.14 015.30 021.3 028.4 012.37 M M ’M Mabel Machen Mad Why, there each young M.A. would go to, Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. If your name were only Mabel And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. see also Half-Mad Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, Oh color hideous, appalling, mad, With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, Orion’s mad, metallic queen; Thy purple haunted eyes are mad For his mad eyes; Of the mad matriarch who sate Made mad songs and patterns of, We were won and lost of a mad young boy. To keep me company lest I go mad: At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, And everything was red and strange and mad; On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, I am as mad as mad can be, For I am as mad as mad can be. Maddening The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; Made see also Moon-Made That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. I have been made by thee idolatrous; Into the shadowland I made my way I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. Or as the futile, giant music made Made mad songs and patterns of, And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. What sense of overhanging doom has made Made for love, made for kissing; A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: Of some white form that made a rattling sound; These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, 138.36 138.28 135.7 129.8 003.22 007.30 017.9 025.9 025.13 030.22 030.30 046.20 046.31 046.35 046.39 103.12 105.12 106.10 125.22 142.1 142.10 003.6 007.24 008.5 011.1 013.14 013.17 030.32 031.3 046.35 059.8 072.6 075.1 079.7 082.4 083.7 100.2 101.22 104.6 104.9 230 Madness A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei She often made the first down payment, In a madness it has perished, Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? They added madness to my frantic cries Maenads For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. Maggots In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll Magic There is magic, there is splendor For magic black. And magic garlands flung Then at the top I stood on magic squares The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, With magic murmurs making Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew Magically Is it the glow so magically bringing Magistry Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— Magnificently Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; Maid To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; The maid I love was buried long ago; Maiden Every youth and maiden must Maiden voices are mute; Maidens see also Sea-Maidens As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Beautiful maidens have their bed Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; While maidens lovely, smiling, fair, Maiden’s A maiden’s kiss A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— Maids By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; Majestic Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee Majestical My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, My thrones majestical, imperial, and great Major Instead, they sound like Major Hooples Make And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; Make this your home for I will make it yours; To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. Make you fair for admiring. To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; Now wherefor do you make this larger room That you make these to that a sacrifice, 128.7 033.22 043.16 084.3 040.8 054.39 085.3 033.17 061.4 067.29 074.5 086.10 109.21 110.10 113.4 110.11 050.12 051.60 015.20 015.38 099.1 004.45 004.65 003.33 004.25 015.44 049.11 016.4 023.3 012.30 067.30 008.3 012.15 067.15 138.3 051.39 077.10 087.12 096.36 111.10 118.9 118.13 M Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; When I can make my students Cram. Maker see also Music-Maker I am builder, I am maker, Makes And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, The true believer makes his own faith all along Making With magic murmurs making Malefic Malefic, purposive, with alien force Malevolence Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence Malice In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice Malices To ponder old, unsated malices. Malicious Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; Malign A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, Malignant Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, Mammon What though you walk by Mammon unattended, Man Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? And traveled backward past the age of man Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. And leave behind me all the weary works of man, The sum of all man knows, the sum of all A slain man moans on a pointed stake She loved no man, so she would boast, I am man. I am man, Of man I sing. I am man. Of man I tire. I am man. I am man. I am man. I am man. That once was man. There was a young man—such a pity!— Man-Bat Footprints of a man-bat woven Mandragoral Wildly, wildly, round features mandragoral Mandrake 231 135.9 137.10 133.8 096.88 134.20 109.21 088.5 011.8 129.6 127.15 129.7 003.10 011.14 027.3 024.12 051.1 003.38 015.36 036.18 043.16 050.10 051.3 075.11 096.98 102.16 125.23 128.9 133.1 133.6 133.7 133.12 133.19 133.27 133.32 133.50 133.57 133.72 145.1 126.13 068.4 232 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Deep stems twining around the mandrake, Mandrakes Why do the mandrakes fear to die? The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, Mandrakes writhe and witch-fires burn, Mandrikor They dwell in dying Mandrikor That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. Mankind I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; Man’s But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, Man’s Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— Many For many a thousand leagues around Have seen the fall of many kings, So little light, so many corridors, Desired of many but achieved by few. And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, Although my flesh with many knives is slit. Marble In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, From the palace, a marble monster whines, Marbles Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, March The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, Mark You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, We left no mark to show her grave, Mark where dead Atlantis lies Never a light to mark the trail Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Marked My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. Marmora In Marmora. In Marmora. In Marmora. In Marmora. In Marmora. In Marmora. Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Mars Marsh In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, Marsh-Weeds Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? Marts The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Marvellous As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses Masher “Masher. Disgusting.” Mass Though singly impotent, might be in mass Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, I must, for it arose, its mass dividing Masses For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses 038.5 056.12 105.3 125.10 010.1 010.16 013.13 007.61 050.12 010.9 030.10 050.2 068.12 096.16 103.4 125.6 125.18 081.10 007.46 102.2 017.7 035.9 047.25 056.6 086.4 085.10 125.4 125.8 125.12 125.16 125.20 125.24 017.15 125.9 056.2 096.94 008.4 101.24 139.14 082.7 087.7 089.8 101.23 M I am the master of each living thing, Of modes that will not match despite your pains. Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; Matriarch Of the mad matriarch who sate Matron Hetaira, matron, virgin bringing Matter What did it matter a thousand years ago What will it matter a thousand years from now The acids would not matter, nor I rue The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? Matters “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” “A great deal matters. Who are you?” May Let us have joy while we may; May sing of her are vain; So dark whichever pathway one may go, He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Oh love, it is enough that I may be Perfection gains by contrast and may be And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only Maybe “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” Maze My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; Beyond the black beyond the stellar maze. Me And weariness of life oppresses me; Where silence ruled yet something waited me DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, And now at last I crown me with a coronal Nothing in all the universe is left for me, Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? And after this, there came to me one green And of that thing there came to me a fear Of thine eyes holdeth me. You will come back to me, You will come back to me, lost lover, Come back, come back to me, You caught me, bound me, with a spell, Enchanted me with dreams that weave; Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Was it only for darkness to blind me, Art thou only a phantom before me, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Once he was pale with love of me, All his great love will end in me, It knew me not from all the rest, Match 233 133.2 117.8 135.9 046.31 049.25 026.1 026.5 121.13 134.19 139.7 139.8 004.50 041.14 050.3 113.10 114.13 117.11 118.5 118.6 118.7 139.11 013.19 036.54 127.20 007.54 011.5 012.44 013.7 013.26 027.3 027.4 029.1 029.9 032.2 039.2 039.7 039.20 042.4 042.5 043.1 043.7 043.11 043.25 046.10 046.43 049.20 234 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, About me, who am dead. That presses on my grave and me, rolled When I felt through me spread the germ At me and slyly chuckle while they keep Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. With wings of beating purple flew to me And when my steed permitted me to light, It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long Yet twined around me with inhuman force. A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. You’ve come again. You keep me company here, And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Around me, solid walls of no escape, Before me, one closed portal, and the flow I begged the gods to save me from such pain. Past them the leopards led me on and on I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? By bathing me in streams of molten lead. They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. Though they, with cruel joy, had given me The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, I thought ironic laughter passed me by. Though they who tortured me were far behind, They caught me in the wasteland in the west. Caught me with safety but a league away. They dragged me back with never pause for rest. And when at last my captors bore me through Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Like me uncertain of their final fate Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. They gave me back my eyes so I could peer They left me morsels, curious and queer, That swiftly toward me now began to fall, Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. And after this, there came to me one green And of that thing swept over me a fear What followed me across the lifeless plain? Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent 051.57 051.58 054.15 054.22 054.26 054.40 067.44 070.14 071.7 071.12 073.2 073.9 074.14 075.14 077.2 077.4 078.5 078.9 078.10 080.10 081.9 082.12 083.1 083.2 083.8 084.4 084.5 084.6 084.7 084.8 084.12 085.5 085.8 085.9 086.1 086.2 086.5 086.12 087.1 087.3 087.8 087.9 087.11 088.13 089.14 090.1 090.9 091.1 091.7 M 235 One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside 091.13 I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. 092.11 Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, 092.13 That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... 092.14 Now no things interest me, 096.3 Things of small worth to me. 096.18 Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, 096.40 And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of 096.43 Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease 096.65 And leave behind me all the weary works of man, 096.98 No voice remains to tell me where she lies, 099.9 A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: 101.22 Now they have buried me in this dark pit, 103.1 They know that it will take me years to die, 103.3 They would not burn me quickly on their spit; 103.5 How much more exquisite to hear me cry 103.6 And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! 103.8 They left to me my eyes, so I could stare 103.9 They left me also rotten corpses there 103.11 To keep me company lest I go mad: 103.12 And then they left me, lonely. lying where 103.13 These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, 104.9 I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. 110.6 The subtle pleasure that you give to me, 114.10 And more for beauty, only known to me. 116.14 Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways 117.1 Your imperfections are as fair to me 117.9 You will become? It seems so strange to me 118.12 I answer—if they love me in my fashion, 119.12 For you have taught a thousand things to me, 120.10 Were errors that have lost their hold on me. 120.14 Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; 122.2 137.17 For they are life and love to me, “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” 139.7 Nothing on earth can bother me, 142.2 None of these things can bother me 142.9 Meadowlark’s From a meadowlark’s passionate throat, 063.4 Meadows Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. 020.12 In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. 051.35 I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, 131.7 Meads On the meads that are rarest, 033.10 Mean And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, 096.46 Are merely words that mean no more than life. 102.4 Meaning Assume new meaning and become the prick 121.10 Means Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, 142.8 Meant Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping 119.1 236 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Measure Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. And lissome houris, gems and gold in many a measure, Measured The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. Measureless Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— Measurelessly Atop a mountain measurelessly high Measures The tolling came like measures for a spell. Meat What nameless hunter searching for its meat? Meet In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— In whose oblivion we shall meet; Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— And stare and stare in horror as I meet If I thus forgot to meet Meeting And sprites invisible attend the meeting, Meets Meets the mysterious woman’s stare Melancholy And melancholy, dream away the afternoon Mellowed With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! Melodies And I, who long for fairer melodies Melody Once lyrical with pagan melody. Memories Memories only wander where Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, Memory Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, The face that haunts thy memory? Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, Men All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; My destiny, and found what men can never guess; Lies upon the dead drowned men. And the living walked less like men While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked A million million men have lived and passed, A million million men will live and pass, Surely the loveliness that men say lies I come to men with unrequiting passion, Men’s And dead men’s bones. Mercurial They saw Mercurial cities rust Merely And they who merely lived are first to sigh: It merely hinted of the coming week. Are merely words that mean no more than life. I merely listened, as I listen still, Meshed I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed 121.4 080.8 096.16 091.10 079.2 089.2 094.8 079.3 012.52 046.46 067.54 083.13 100.7 051.38 055.15 096.56 022.10 028.9 012.37 047.6 070.5 006.6 007.47 012.47 073.4 013.6 013.10 047.36 048.6 048.17 102.12 102.14 119.3 119.9 057.16 030.35 051.18 084.14 102.4 122.7 M in the love thou hast sown, Mesmerize And if you mesmerize To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, Messages Now in the mind come messages unspoken, Messenger Foul messenger of war and holocaust, I have met darker nights than that of old, Metal A metal titan shapen like a cone, From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. Metallic Orion’s mad, metallic queen; On long, metallic clang, the brazen door Mewing Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, Mews There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; M’hamed And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul Miasmal Where miasmal stenches slowly Mice The very mice absorb their wisdom, Mid-Air The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, Midnight Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Descending into midnight depths that lurked Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, That clove through midnight where no other stirred, I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I am mist in midnight hollow, Midnight’s Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Midst The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten Might As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. All things died in my black might, All things that you might love, Though singly impotent, might be in mass Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, Mightier Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule Mighty They saw the mighty Atthla fall Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, Mildewed While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Miles Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding And the miles of rotten bogs. Million A thousand million years ago, 237 043.26 096.39 119.6 147.10 017.18 122.9 076.6 080.4 030.22 081.2 075.10 087.5 096.79 126.6 138.21 074.10 004.5 011.19 015.44 070.9 079.5 101.1 111.4 131.10 133.21 029.3 090.3 129.14 008.4 046.7 067.41 082.7 088.11 071.10 030.37 076.2 127.13 062.9 081.10 089.4 126.8 030.38 238 Mimmih Mind Mindless A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A million million men have lived and passed, A million million men will live and pass, 102.12 102.14 Archibald Mimmih ran a neat My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze My mind with longings for some ancient thing, No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, And no love lasts if love be only mind, The face that haunts your heart and mind. I could not move though mind and spirit broke. With formless terrors running through my mind? For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, And she didn’t mind, Now in the mind come messages unspoken, 140.1 013.19 027.10 036.38 051.23 067.47 072.14 083.4 116.5 117.14 120.8 133.4 144.4 147.10 Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, And the mind’s decision, Till her body be mine. And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover For one intoxicating night were mine. All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Mine the love that can fade not or falter, He is mine. Around and see the comrades that are mine; But ennui still is mine. And all your days, and mine, a vain device. And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine Minnesota If this were done to Minnesota, Minutes The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Mirror Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Her own reflections in a mirror. Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— Mirth And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, Devoid of mirth, devoid of feeling; Mirthful The things that mirthful wizards killed Mirthless Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. Mind’s Mine 075.10 033.35 003.12 003.26 003.35 007.20 013.21 023.6 027.6 043.14 043.19 046.48 087.10 096.24 118.14 119.10 138.35 003.25 096.29 096.58 096.73 043.4 128.12 129.3 062.6 128.34 030.47 081.8 M 239 Mirtylon That brought to Mirtylon its doom, 030.18 Miss “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” 139.1 “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” 139.3 “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” 139.5 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” 139.11 “But Miss Shere—” 139.17 Misshapen And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths 011.3 Missing Such a treasure? I’d be missing 100.4 Mist Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies 001.13 As the mist and the rain; 009.16 And thou hast known the azure mist 030.17 Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, 044.5 That almost hissed or the shimmering mist 048.15 Like a mist that fades into sodden skies 063.13 Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall 127.3 Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. 127.5 I am mist in midnight hollow, 133.21 Mistily And mistily shone the ghostly 045.13 Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, 069.13 Mistress When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking 005.1 Mists A gray dusk mists the air 053.6 The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; 059.14 Misty And all the air was misty as a cloud. 106.8 Moan Of the wind will moan 002.28 The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. 007.44 I offer thee the moan 012.3 The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; 013.2 Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, 025.7 For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. 040.8 I offer you the moan 067.3 Moaned The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, 105.3 Moaning 015.42 I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; Moans Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; 018.6 A slain man moans on a pointed stake 125.23 Mobbed Mobbed him to induce him; 140.10 Mocking In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep 054.39 Mode More modish than the current mode; 128.6 Model A model professorial wonder, 138.31 Modes Of modes that will not match despite your pains. 117.8 Modish More modish than the current mode; 128.6 Molten By bathing me in streams of molten lead. 084.4 Moly And flowers fair as moly 109.13 Moment 240 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei But a moment will come and death destroy Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? And years of striving in one moment ended. 004.33 Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered Monotone When the cold monotone Monotonous Weary of all desires grown monotonous, Monotony I weary of the old monotony of things; Monotony of life an empty show? Monster From the palace, a marble monster whines, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. The monster gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, Monsters Fishes swim and monsters creep From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. Monstrous For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; With monstrous fires aflame. Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; With dazzle of a monstrous flame, With monstrous fires aflame. A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover Moods With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: To capture moods that change or leave; Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways Moon Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, Have known the fungi of the moon, By seas that thunder vainly to the moon; Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes But something from the dark side of the moon Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon In the mystical burning pallor of the moon I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; From any moon. I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. 036.9 Monitors 043.27 051.7 002.27 096.7 013.1 026.4 125.18 141.1 141.2 141.3 141.4 141.9 141.12 141.13 141.17 141.18 047.3 080.4 003.18 012.25 013.22 030.42 067.25 089.6 101.18 015.28 042.11 117.1 025.7 030.2 031.4 045.14 075.12 096.85 101.4 105.2 109.32 110.6 M Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; Moonbeams On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Moon-Dim Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime Moonfaced Great big moonfaced politicians, Moonglow Along starroads with only moonglow paven Moonless Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. Moonlight The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight She will go in the cold moonlight You drift upon the moonlight hovering near Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go Moon-Made Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes Moonrays She will halt where the moonrays trace Moons Beneath twin moons of livid red. Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, Moon’s I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; Moonstruck Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, Moor Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. Moral “But I’m perfectly moral.” Morals She had no scruples and no morals Morbid The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown More And I was more insatiate with satiation, More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, I worship thee and ever worship more. More ghostly than the faint starlight. More fabulous than all the gems of fame, The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing We left her far more quiet body lying there: I sought beyond no more. Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Our thoughts will be more sad than death is Of the splendor known no more, We turned and set forth once more, And into more than light, to something wholly Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, Never more shall I hear sound 241 111.2 058.9 113.13 142.3 037.6 018.2 111.4 061.3 065.1 077.3 096.97 045.14 065.11 030.36 113.6 125.2 101.27 006.22 069.8 139.13 128.39 025.6 007.25 007.26 007.33 007.55 007.60 010.8 012.23 013.18 015.37 035.7 036.40 036.62 039.4 047.18 048.2 051.11 051.13 054.16 242 Morn Morning A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei More fabulous than all the gems of fame. Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, Increasing, spreading more and ever more Of revelers turned statue, and no more One thought more torturing usurped my brain, Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, I only find more ennui in philosophies, Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Are merely words that mean no more than life. How much more exquisite to hear me cry And fair things yet more fair, Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; The inner beauty I more deeply care Differed so, each from each, and this one more And more for beauty, only known to me. As your more supernatal beauty, since Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise You proved illusion not more strong than oaken And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, More modish than the current mode; Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. The school was more than popular In the breathless, waiting morn; Awaiting morn. Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; Morsels They left me morsels, curious and queer, Mortal Never will mortal outlive the tomb— The mortal flesh that dies? Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond Mosque But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Moss An unseen step on the creeping moss— Most We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Most lovely, half satanic, half divine, Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. We were most high; For all things die, but they die most regretful But they whose life was barren are most fretful, The days for which the heart should be most grateful The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, She loved alone and loved she most Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; Mote I am mote Motes Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints 067.23 069.13 078.6 081.7 084.10 095.7 096.28 096.61 097.2 102.4 103.6 109.23 111.2 114.11 115.7 116.14 117.10 119.7 120.5 124.3 124.4 128.6 137.24 140.5 021.6 065.8 069.13 066.13 087.11 004.37 012.49 050.11 134.2 056.3 003.15 027.2 028.8 046.36 051.15 051.17 070.4 073.1 096.46 128.11 135.9 133.25 076.13 M Motion At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. I heard alone the surging tides in motion. Mottled Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. Mould All the slime and mould that slowly spread Moulds Moulds her breast. Mouldy Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. Mound In my grave beneath my mound. On the old and grass-covered mound Mountain Atop a mountain measurelessly high Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Mountains Through its valleys and its mountains I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, The mountains and the rivers whisper: Death. The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, Mounted The waters mounted in one surge whose swell Mounting For ever mounting past the realm of light, This never ending night of mounting pain, Mourn And watched a queen of Saturn mourn The mouth where something dark was trickling through. Mouth A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; And your mouth poppy-lipped, Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Who can blame the mouth that sips And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine Mouths And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses Move I can not move a thigh, She will move through the moveless shade I could not move though mind and spirit broke. But could not move or even draw one breath: And yet I could not move. There came a creak, Of phantoms move; You move: the unexpected things you say; Moved That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. Moveless She will move through the moveless shade Movements And in her movements, languid charms abide. Moves Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. Moving No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree Mowed There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed Mr And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, 243 079.10 094.14 017.14 054.14 066.8 053.10 054.18 065.15 089.2 124.10 033.1 095.9 102.11 130.1 130.17 141.1 141.17 094.5 024.9 084.13 030.11 073.8 084.11 096.45 097.5 100.3 119.10 082.14 101.11 054.5 065.7 072.14 093.13 104.10 109.36 114.5 095.14 065.7 053.5 111.8 093.3 106.1 138.39 244 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” Much So few the days, so much that one could know, And find defeat ere I have much begun; How much more exquisite to hear me cry Or much greater, Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. Muezzin Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer Muffled Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; Multiple It reigned on its multiple thrones. Multiplied Of worm that multiplied on worm Mummied In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes Mummies Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound And there were living, ancient mummies bound Murderer’s The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. Murk In the depths of gloomy murk: Murmur That murmur of things that wane, Murmur of all things that wane, Long-dead creatures murmur and sigh That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. Murmuring Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves Murmurs With magic murmurs making Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; Muse Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Music The rapturous music poured in lyric streams Or as the futile, giant music made Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves A music in the air, Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; Musically As if a wind had musically stirred Music-Maker A music-maker, lord of sorcery. Music’s I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Must All to death must go. Must die; Beauty and Love and Life must die, Even the least. Beauty must die. Every youth and maiden must For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, For Beauty ever must dissolve and die; And knowing that my quest at last must falter 139.10 139.18 050.1 050.6 103.6 133.64 137.24 096.77 094.3 057.20 054.27 059.5 072.7 104.7 017.8 047.38 001.10 063.10 125.7 138.4 060.8 109.21 110.10 041.13 096.73 015.30 031.3 060.8 109.22 110.10 028.7 113.12 096.23 004.20 004.22 004.29 004.34 004.45 007.15 007.42 036.15 M Musty Mute Muted Mutter Muttered I saw I still must fail. Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— The door must open, showing why the hue I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, For my escape I knew what I must pay: I must, for it arose, its mass dividing And when I die, must be enscrolled We left her staring at the musty pall, But the musty tale can never be told Maiden voices are mute; A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. But all is mute forevermore. Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, Can escape to tell of muted grief. And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered Muttering Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. Mutterings Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. My The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, The idol in my shrine of ebony, Into the shadowland I made my way I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths And in the waters saw my own face drown, Offends my nostrils, My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, Of all my spectral lands, All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; My destiny, and found what men can never guess; And yet, in all my travels I could only find My soul’s death-knell. My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! 245 036.56 067.56 078.13 085.13 086.3 089.8 137.25 035.3 057.21 004.65 007.32 010.4 039.16 088.10 006.12 062.6 045.19 081.8 082.4 003.5 003.6 003.10 003.14 003.17 003.35 007.1 007.5 007.19 007.37 007.51 007.63 008.7 011.1 011.22 011.24 012.9 012.15 012.19 013.6 013.10 013.15 013.16 013.19 013.25 025.4 246 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei My mind with longings for some ancient thing, So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, How all my days are as an aria played How all my time is winnowed, leaving husks Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing And how my love that burns herein so deep Shall even as my lost days be foredone, And knowing that my quest at last must falter I sought my spirit’s goal. My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; To perish when my later footsteps came; I have burned all my flame at the altar, As the stars are, my love is eternal. Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. All things died in my black might, He was possessed with my red flame, My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, My royal robes like a purple ghost In my design; Thus I close my doors Set, fixed, immovable my head: Set, fixed, immovable my bed; In my tomb beneath the ground, In my grave beneath my mound. Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned That presses on my grave and me, rolled In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, And wriggle through my gray I lie in my last sleep; Their festful riot in my rotting heap. Or in my dead flesh foul to float, My corpse was once a festering sore My body will not pour My bones are hoar I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain Offends my nostrils. Go! My thrones majestical, imperial, and great Of all my timeless lands, In my domain alone you’ll capture Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, And when my steed permitted me to light, My old companions waited all around: My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke It was my own; my own face showed that hue, 027.10 029.10 031.1 031.5 031.9 031.11 031.12 036.15 036.24 036.31 036.36 036.52 043.17 043.23 043.28 044.8 046.7 046.21 046.22 046.27 046.44 052.7 054.8 054.9 054.17 054.18 054.19 054.22 054.23 054.24 054.28 054.31 054.33 054.41 054.44 054.48 054.53 054.55 067.5 067.9 067.15 067.19 067.48 067.51 071.12 072.2 072.12 073.5 M My own the lineaments that seemed to be Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. Unto my feet a little trickle crept Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells As I remember, in my agony Then beating to the chambers of my brain Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot I found my leg become a hellish root, And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. With formless terrors running through my mind? My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; They added madness to my frantic cries One thought more torturing usurped my brain, A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. For my escape I knew what I must pay: Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. And when at last my captors bore me through They gave me back my eyes so I could peer To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. And stood tremendous to my caverned room, From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone I struggled onward though my strength was spent And in the fading vision of my sleep I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, My lady hath two lovely lips, Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, Although my flesh with many knives is slit. They left to me my eyes, so I could stare My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. And both my hands were covered with that red, O Love, my world is pouring O Love, my heart adoring Though all my days were added one by one, I answer—if they love me in my fashion, To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. 247 073.6 073.11 075.1 075.11 078.1 078.4 080.6 080.9 080.12 081.5 082.9 082.11 082.14 083.4 083.6 084.1 084.2 084.3 084.10 084.11 085.2 085.3 085.10 086.3 086.4 086.12 087.9 087.12 089.10 089.13 090.10 091.3 095.12 096.8 096.22 096.40 096.76 100.1 101.21 103.4 103.9 104.12 105.14 106.9 109.33 109.37 115.1 119.12 119.14 248 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei My life-illusion has at last been broken, My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. And of my presence, I could feel no sign Only you, and the past, my dearest And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; I am wisdom of my own self blind, I am my own final taker, But when my span You have never been inspiring to my pen. And to the students in my classes, And in my greatest bliss I am When I can make my students Cram. I offer to my students gratis, Upon my tomb, this legend bold: Myriad A tolling like a myriad decibels Myrrh The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. Myrrhiline Even as I, Oh Myrrhiline, Thou art beautiful, Myrrhiline, But even thou, Oh Myrrhiline, And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, And even so, Myrrhiline, So let us love, Myrrhiline, But in thine arms, Myrrhiline, Myrtle But alas! Your name is Myrtle, Myself Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed Mysteries Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; Mysterious Witching, haunted, haunting, mysterious faces All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, In those mysterious lands and alien places Meets the mysterious woman’s stare Mysterious as her sunken palace is, Mystery For him who sought the mystery, The sea’s eternal mystery, Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, Mystic For him whose mystic sleep Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, For a long and mystic sleep With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, 120.1 120.8 122.3 123.19 124.4 124.7 124.12 124.13 133.5 133.11 133.59 135.6 137.7 137.9 137.10 137.16 137.26 080.3 007.4 096.35 127.5 004.10 004.39 004.41 004.43 004.47 004.71 004.80 135.10 054.10 013.22 006.15 034.10 036.45 055.15 127.12 014.25 020.10 093.6 094.6 106.14 110.5 014.22 027.3 047.35 068.5 M Mystical Mytilene Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, In the mystical burning pallor of the moon And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: Imbedded witches’ jewels mystical, I only know she died in Mytilene. 249 034.2 101.4 110.4 112.2 127.8 099.14 N Naked She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, Of naked hearts, and dust The naked torso of a goddess glowing Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, And naked lay the true design, the trick. Name Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Of secret worlds that have no name or place. The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; If your name were only Mabel But alas! Your name is Myrtle, Nameless And fearful regions of a nameless fright, What nameless hunter searching for its meat? Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: Names The names of all the Roman towns; The authors’ names I know by rote, Nard Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Natural That’s natural artifice in you; the way Nature She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases All nature whispers but her one word: Death. Till Nature teems Naught Naught by thy loveliness I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Near And the long nights near But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, In search of something lost, but never near it; No other form is near, You drift upon the moonlight hovering near Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; No human being could be near her: Who came from near and came from far Nearer To be, I thought to find in nearer faces Nearest Nothing of farthest or nearest, Neat Archibald Mimmih ran a neat ’Neath ‘Neath the lowering skies Neck My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke My neck, and heard a husky gurgling choke Necklace 003.9 039.14 092.4 096.40 121.12 059.13 069.4 070.8 101.17 135.7 135.10 025.8 079.3 087.8 101.22 137.4 137.5 096.35 114.4 041.7 102.9 109.24 032.9 070.10 002.26 029.12 037.4 058.10 077.3 087.8 090.12 092.14 103.8 122.2 128.10 140.7 036.47 123.17 140.1 002.22 072.12 104.12 N And a pebble necklace around his head Necrophilic The dark star’s necrophilic race. Nectar The nectar of their chalice On the nectar of love I have fed, Needle-Bed Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. Neither I further search with neither hope nor peace And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. Neither thing will walk again. That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. Nepenthe The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, Nests Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found Never Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, Never will Beauty escape the grave, Never will mortal outlive the tomb— Never again will a dead girl thrill For us the future never will come, And never will the present cease, And never shall I find release, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. And never footsteps tread the ground. As thou hast never known; Of golden voices that will never speak; My destiny, and found what men can never guess; I know that death itself will never bring release; That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, To paint the things I never shall relate. In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, Still seeking that which I had never found, In search of something lost, but never near it; Her loveliness in poetry lies never. There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Oh light that never shone for me one ray, But never changes, never fades, Never more shall I hear sound Till darkness falls—it never will— Her vigil never will be done: Never a light to mark the trail But the musty tale can never be told Of the pulpy head that never grows old, As you have never known, And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) As if there never were an end in store. 251 038.15 030.28 033.5 043.30 084.8 036.60 053.8 126.16 129.4 134.7 072.3 003.37 003.39 004.35 004.36 004.37 004.66 004.69 004.78 004.79 007.40 010.12 012.2 012.34 013.10 013.30 025.2 025.14 036.30 036.42 037.4 041.15 043.14 051.3 051.57 053.7 054.16 055.17 055.18 056.6 057.21 057.24 067.2 077.11 078.7 252 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; This never ending night of mounting pain, To reach the haven I would never find. They dragged me back with never pause for rest. And in recurring deaths escape them never. Take, or the taking never will be thine; But from the sundered room I never crept— And light that never shone Than any known in lands that never were, Love comes. I know that I shall never be These things I love, yet words can never tell Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, And you will never know what years drift by. What they are told, the falseness never find So long as there was never danger; I am wastrel, never keeper, Never finder, If I never take you anywhere again; You have never been inspiring to my pen. I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Are things that never ought to bore ’em. Nevermore Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried Never-Setting The crimson, never-setting sun, New For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace Or be bathed in new glory, What goal, what new companion did I seek? Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, Radiant and ever-freshening, ever new, Assume new meaning and become the prick She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. Nielsen When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew Night All the night. And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, All night I bowed before a burning shrine; 084.11 084.13 085.12 086.5 087.14 097.6 105.13 109.27 113.3 113.9 114.9 116.7 118.4 121.7 128.14 133.34 133.36 135.3 135.6 135.12 137.22 093.12 055.10 003.18 013.14 025.9 033.29 072.9 077.8 084.5 112.6 112.9 113.5 115.10 121.10 129.12 113.4 003.20 003.26 007.1 007.2 007.3 007.6 007.15 007.17 007.18 N For one intoxicating night were mine. All night in worship and in love I lay; All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, The vacant spaces of the weary night; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, They dwell in wasteland and in night. In night. Is night. Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; Tremble upon the scented air of night, All night long. A rapture in the night, That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, Ere I, by night and darkness, am bereft Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered Where night was like a shroud before an altar The night that brings a sleep. Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Strange was the night, and stranger I brought him dreams of eternal night, When the night came down again. Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— She has yielded to the kiss of night, And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, To her tryst she will go in the night, She will dream as the night wanes slowly, Night be gone. And so I soared on pinions of the night Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard This never ending night of mounting pain, All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! I am the night and the garden and all things swoon The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, 253 007.20 007.38 007.39 007.40 007.43 007.50 007.51 007.63 010.5 014.8 014.15 015.6 015.10 015.16 021.2 024.11 031.8 034.15 036.9 036.13 036.64 043.4 045.5 046.5 048.8 051.61 054.21 056.1 056.5 056.9 058.1 061.11 065.3 065.19 066.4 071.9 079.1 084.13 094.1 094.2 095.10 096.71 096.85 098.4 101.3 101.18 101.29 102.2 254 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, Sleep the dim night away And voices shake the night So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; All night the blood-red ruby glares, Sucking sounds invade the night, I am night erasing day, Of black and radiant night. “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” Evening to night, and night to afterglow, Nightfall see After-Nightfall Nightingale The clear, pure warble of a nightingale Nightingale’s From a nightingale’s golden throat, Nightmare What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: Nightmare-Dream At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, Nights Oh, the nights are long And the long nights near Oh, the nights are long And unforgotten nights Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, I have met darker nights than that of old, Night’s Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, Within those precincts of the spectral night’s In night’s eternal pall. In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? And night’s great arch illume. Nightward Nightward and deeper. Engirt, and hurled me nightward into doom. Night-Wind Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? Nine “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” Nirvana And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, No Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, No traveler crosses now the land, But found no other than the great refrain: 105.1 105.9 109.7 109.15 110.14 111.2 125.13 126.9 133.55 134.12 139.5 139.18 147.13 021.5 001.4 017.1 092.14 104.4 105.12 002.3 002.26 002.33 039.17 070.6 096.5 122.9 007.33 011.15 045.12 059.12 134.24 064.4 089.14 056.4 139.18 096.59 134.8 006.11 006.14 007.55 010.17 014.19 N Out of oblivion, no voice will stir It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy And of his face, there was no vestige seen, Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. But the eyes have no vision, Could wing no flight, We left no mark to show her grave, No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, I sought beyond no more. The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. So fair she is that beauty hath no graces Of the splendor known no more, But no voice shall speak again The twilight brought no ease from the hot Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, Or gold that never yet no man befriended, But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, And to no futile dream of death aspires, And of no emptiness is unforgetful. No love endures if love be only passion And no love lasts if love be only mind, Than which no love can have supremer worth. There will spring no laughter That has no counterpart in lands of time No glare There are no eyes to see, No voice to tell of days that were, No ears to hear her footsteps die away. A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. No other form is near, The world of which no tale is handed down. Of secret worlds that have no name or place. Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source And languid, warming into life; no dread A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, Around me, solid walls of no escape, That clove through midnight where no other stirred, Of revelers turned statue, and no more I found no door, and when all hope lay dead I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, And of its face no vestige could be seen, No hint of what it once resembled, save Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree Now no things interest me, 255 026.9 027.13 028.5 029.5 031.6 031.14 033.33 034.13 035.9 036.38 036.40 040.3 040.4 041.1 047.18 047.33 048.13 050.10 051.3 051.19 051.20 051.21 051.22 051.23 051.49 052.5 053.3 053.9 053.11 053.12 053.13 053.20 058.10 068.14 070.8 074.13 075.6 076.5 078.9 079.5 081.7 088.7 088.8 090.5 090.7 091.6 092.7 093.3 096.3 256 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. No voice remains to tell me where she lies, There is no picture of her dear dead face, I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, Are merely words that mean no more than life. Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Of death itself, there now was left no trace, Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; In all infinity was left no place I know there are no princesses, but you Yet would it be no Eden to entice. The lands no traveller ever found on earth; And through its darkened window see no sky: Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. And of my presence, I could feel no sign Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, She loved no man, so she would boast, No human being could be near her: Believed no truth except what pleased her; Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, She had no scruples and no morals I hear them when no human voice is talking Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, Nod She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list Nodules Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Noisome A noisome pool as once before. None For none are left the tale to tell. He walks where none can know or see, There was none before you, There will be none after. For there will come none after, Though none is lovelier Where none are seen: There will be none with you to help you share it, Where none could know or share. For surely none would think of spurning None of these things can bother me Noon Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, On fields of noon, Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. Noons To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, Nor There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall 096.20 096.64 097.2 097.5 099.9 099.10 101.28 102.4 104.3 107.3 107.6 107.7 113.1 115.11 116.12 118.2 119.8 122.3 122.10 124.6 124.9 128.9 128.10 128.30 128.32 128.37 128.39 131.3 134.10 019.2 101.9 093.8 054.54 010.24 014.9 052.1 052.2 052.8 096.51 109.12 118.3 134.6 138.37 142.9 096.89 101.1 109.28 111.4 051.51 N not sever Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem I further search with neither hope nor peace Nor always full the charming sleeve— Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. Nor ever a hand caressed its fat; The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead I can not find, nor do I seem to place Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear Not anywhere was life nor anything, Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, Nor I desire it if it held not you; The acids would not matter, nor I rue Of recognition, nor was I to stay Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. Not on earth nor anywhere Normal I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; Northern The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers Northerly And back; and purple suns flamed northerly North-Wind And the north-wind—hark! Nose Within the limits of his nose, Nostrils Offends my nostrils, Offends my nostrils. Go! Not For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Go! I can not bear thee, Go! DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; The earth could not contain We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep, I do not know. There is an ache that fills Some thing I find not though I ever seek. He leered so vilely, Horror could not save And when they oped they could not find Still farther where not even stars were flaring 257 003.39 031.6 031.14 036.46 036.60 042.17 050.11 053.8 057.13 075.3 077.5 077.6 107.12 107.13 115.12 121.13 122.4 124.10 124.12 124.13 129.4 133.65 013.17 034.1 071.3 002.11 138.25 012.9 067.9 003.18 003.22 003.39 012.10 012.11 012.44 013.14 014.16 014.21 014.24 014.27 014.31 027.9 027.11 029.7 030.43 036.29 258 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem I have not found it sleeping or awaking. I will not find it till all things shall cease, For song, not she, doth gain. Not always empty is a shell, Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? Mine the love that can fade not or falter, There could not be so still a sea It knew me not from all the rest, That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, That flowered not, and all things weep to die, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, I can not close an eye, I can not move a thigh, I can not even sigh And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm My body will not pour Stares with an eye she can not shun. Not a creature lived in all the land, Not a thing disputed the lordly worm I can not bear you. Go! Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— Death: Not long, not long.... It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. Where all things are, yet are not; time and space I could not move though mind and spirit broke. For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. I can not find, nor do I seem to place This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; I could not turn though fronted by the rack. They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay But could not move or even draw one breath: And dreams that can not be. And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, I know not whether she was slave or queen; The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; They would not burn me quickly on their spit; And yet I could not move. There came a creak, Where Death in death all things did not immerse. Not anywhere was life nor anything, Nor I desire it if it held not you; 036.46 036.57 036.58 041.16 042.16 043.12 043.19 048.11 049.20 050.5 050.10 051.16 051.58 054.4 054.5 054.6 054.25 054.53 055.4 057.6 057.11 067.10 067.11 067.44 067.51 067.56 067.57 070.1 070.11 072.14 074.3 075.3 075.11 077.5 082.2 083.10 084.7 086.7 093.13 096.6 096.32 096.43 096.46 099.11 101.26 103.5 104.10 107.8 107.12 115.12 N Beauty possesses, but would not care If in your head or heart, there were not room Of modes that will not match despite your pains. An emptiness not knowing you are there. Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping You proved illusion not more strong than oaken My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. I am not sorry to have been your lover, And truths I could not otherwise discover. The acids would not matter, nor I rue Their ravage, if they had not come from you. And waited, wondered, though I did not know... Heard legends not by earthly voices told, I listen, but I do not hear them fall, She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; I hear them when I am not even questing Not on earth nor anywhere Say, sixty-five, not one day under, “Certainly not.” “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Note Like the pain in a passionate note A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, Like the ghost of an echoing note As I note Notes And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture Nothing Though nothing visible is there Nothing in all the universe is left for me, For nothing suffices These, these are gone, nothing of them remains I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed That all would pass, that nothing would abide. Where nothing else remains. That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. Nothing of farthest or nearest, Nothing of future or present, I am nothing as I die, Nothing on earth can bother me, Nothingness That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, Nought Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought Nouns I know all Latin stems and nouns, Now Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips 259 116.2 116.4 117.8 118.8 119.1 119.4 120.5 120.8 120.9 120.12 121.13 121.14 122.8 122.11 122.13 128.27 129.7 131.11 133.65 138.32 139.4 139.10 146.3 001.3 015.47 021.3 051.61 063.3 133.26 015.5 015.9 010.6 013.26 033.37 051.8 096.67 099.3 107.11 109.39 112.16 123.17 123.18 133.56 142.2 076.14 102.2 013.11 137.3 260 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei be ashen, Thy lovely face uplifted now, Thy body now so passionate Only now do we live. And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, No traveler crosses now the land, And now at last I crown me with a coronal Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; He sought the infinite in life, but now Then, on this paper now so blank and white, What will it matter a thousand years from now They gazed on stars that now are dust, Now I fully awaken In constellations now to space-dust shrunken For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; In the streets now covered deep, Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed I now have ceased to bloat; Worms now have ceased to gloat, But now that time is gone of yore Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. Now was I destined after all to die, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, That swiftly toward me now began to fall, The ocean beds were open now, and free, Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, Now no things interest me, Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Of death itself, there now was left no trace, Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, Now wherefor do you make this larger room My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, Now in the mind come messages unspoken, Nowhere Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, Numb In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, Numbers Like cardinal numbers adding without end; Nymphs Nymphs to play. With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; 003.23 004.18 004.21 004.70 007.43 007.49 010.17 013.7 013.25 014.4 025.5 026.5 030.33 033.9 036.23 040.5 047.34 054.10 054.42 054.43 054.51 058.7 067.51 068.6 078.8 085.1 087.1 088.13 095.2 096.1 096.3 096.55 096.85 101.21 103.1 107.3 107.13 118.9 120.8 134.4 146.1 147.10 088.11 088.10 115.2 015.8 015.28 051.39 O O Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, O Love, a flower closes O Love, my world is pouring O Love, my heart adoring Binds you, O Love. I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, O Love, the world so shadowy and dim So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, Oak Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze Oaken You proved illusion not more strong than oaken Oblivion Oblivion. Out of oblivion, no voice will stir Until the last oblivion. And left her lovely body to oblivion; In whose oblivion we shall meet; Oblivion had laid its deathless curse And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. Oblivious Of the oblivious years. In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought Occasions And paid for all, on some occasions. Ocean Then ocean received the husks that we heaved Or rests where an ocean current laves Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; The ocean beds were open now, and free, I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, O’clock “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” Odorous Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Of see also Dreamed-Of, Pieces-of-Eight, Undreamed-Of Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Of flowers that die, That murmur of things that wane, Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, Is the voice of Beauty that dies. 041.13 096.34 109.1 109.33 109.37 109.40 110.5 110.9 110.13 110.16 112.13 112.15 147.2 120.5 014.20 026.9 030.52 035.6 046.46 107.1 112.4 009.24 013.9 128.20 048.21 060.10 094.11 095.2 095.10 139.18 096.25 001.1 001.6 001.10 001.11 001.12 001.14 262 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Has the cold of death Of summer flown. Of the wind will moan I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; For wine of fire. A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Of our love. At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Thou art loveliest of the things I know; Let us forget the passing of years, The years of the past have long since flown, The flowers of old are overblown, And the song of Beauty for ever dying The lips of the singers of Greece are still, As one who of strange pleasure sips, When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking Remember the days that will come of the breaking Of Venus’s trust, Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, Can escape to tell of muted grief. Enigmatic loveliness of enigmatic figures, Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; The intolerable sanctity of sin; And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, The tale is told of years of long ago. The vacant spaces of the weary night; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, And weariness of life oppresses me; No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, 002.18 002.24 002.28 003.1 003.2 003.5 003.6 003.8 003.10 003.11 003.16 003.21 003.22 003.29 003.34 003.38 004.40 004.52 004.55 004.56 004.61 004.64 004.74 005.1 005.3 005.4 006.3 006.6 006.12 006.13 006.20 007.1 007.2 007.10 007.19 007.28 007.30 007.37 007.43 007.46 007.47 007.48 007.50 007.51 007.54 007.55 007.61 007.63 O The idol in my shrine of ebony, Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Of the oblivious years. And underneath the shroud of gloom Lie only shards of that dread doom The cold apocalypse of sand. And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Within those precincts of the spectral night’s Of Acherontic streams; The poppies of the dead Of all my spectral lands, Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; More fabulous than all the gems of fame, By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; The lips of her of Troy, The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; Of golden voices that will never speak; The sound of perished lutes The glory of I weary of the old monotony of things; The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; Of dead desire. The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Of star and sun. Of bitter woe. I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests Whose dream of old is gone To read the tale of star and sun, The guessless riddle of infinity. Of death. A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture Tremble upon the scented air of night, Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? Of desolation and the livid dead, 263 008.7 008.8 009.24 010.14 010.15 010.20 011.3 011.14 011.15 012.4 012.12 012.19 012.21 012.23 012.30 012.31 012.32 012.34 012.35 012.39 013.1 013.2 013.6 013.8 013.18 013.20 013.24 013.29 014.1 014.2 014.7 014.13 014.18 014.26 014.36 015.4 015.6 015.9 015.10 015.22 015.31 015.33 015.34 015.35 015.36 015.46 016.1 017.1 017.3 264 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. Apocalyptic prophet of our doom, Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, Foul messenger of war and holocaust, Symbol of Armageddon, rot of rust, With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, The clear, pure warble of a nightingale A wine-red toast to the health of the host— For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long From all the hate of all those bitter scars. For ever mounting past the realm of light, That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown And fearful regions of a nameless fright, Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, Vampirish beings of a stellar race, Monotony of life an empty show? With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? Out of oblivion, no voice will stir To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, Of buried kings, and empires perilous; The older glory of the days that were Was there a goddess in the days of old, And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, And every sound a thing of lyric joy. With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And of that thing there came to me a fear For I was his, that horror of the dead. Have known the fungi of the moon, Of lizard-gods in Jupiter, Have seen the fall of many kings, And watched a queen of Saturn mourn 017.4 017.7 017.8 017.10 017.11 017.12 017.15 017.17 017.18 017.19 019.1 020.7 020.12 021.1 021.5 022.3 022.11 023.2 024.1 024.3 024.6 024.8 024.9 024.11 024.13 025.1 025.6 025.8 025.10 025.11 026.4 026.8 026.9 026.10 026.11 026.12 027.1 027.4 027.14 028.3 028.4 029.2 029.5 029.9 029.14 030.2 030.6 030.10 030.11 O The death of pale-green bloated things. To see the Hylots of Calair, And drunk a wine of amethyst Of sights and sounds of outer space, With knowledge of the carrion Beneath twin moons of livid red. With dazzle of a monstrous flame, With visions of the stellar pits, Beyond the age of any sun; Of every age and every sky. Of hope; and how my hours are unavailing To chart the labyrinths of long assailing; Of thine eyes holdeth me. The beauty of thy features, Of the gods, I inherit The nectar of their chalice And the lotus of their leaven, Of their paradisal heaven. From the sweep of vast spaces Of a dream supernal. Of a glory I have drunken, Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, The luminous shadow of the infinite, Skeins of fluctuant color, lit With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, And surge of falling flame of far dominions, Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... I sought it in far lands of timeless travel Athwart the circling citadel of stars, Where only courage of lost hope could ravel The secret of eternal avatars. With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered And traveled backward past the age of man The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, The scattered symbols of those closing pages No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, From utmost regions of strange realms returning, I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, In search of something lost, but never near it; Pebbles and beetles and layers of earth, Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; With wine of life. Of naked hearts, and dust Of wasted years; Of slow, fierce grief. The storied queens of old? 265 030.12 030.14 030.19 030.26 030.31 030.36 030.42 030.46 030.50 030.56 031.9 031.10 032.2 032.5 033.4 033.5 033.6 033.8 033.13 033.16 033.21 034.2 034.5 034.6 034.7 034.8 034.15 036.1 036.2 036.3 036.4 036.5 036.7 036.9 036.18 036.28 036.35 036.38 036.43 036.54 037.2 037.4 038.6 038.14 039.12 039.14 039.15 039.18 041.10 266 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei May sing of her are vain; White poppy of the crimson eve— I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Like a drinker of chloral I dream, Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, And its death is the death of the world. Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Wine of life and of death I have drunken, On the nectar of love I have fed, There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. Fore-glimpse of after-hell. Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call In search of closed escapes. I brought him dreams of eternal night, I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, Once he was pale with love of me, He had dreams and thoughts of just I was the sign of royal state, Of the mad matriarch who sate Made mad songs and patterns of, From each of us he took his joy, We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Sunken walls of crumbling stone Whisper of the days of old, Of the splendor known no more, In the depths of gloomy murk: From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts By the legions of the pest. As we strode the streets of Tyre Of those who came to praise this day As we strode down the streets of Tyre. Of those the days before the quest. Or purple, dear to children of the dust, And years of striving in one moment ended. These, these are gone, nothing of them remains Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, 041.14 042.2 043.2 043.10 043.12 043.13 043.15 043.22 043.24 043.25 043.29 043.30 044.1 044.2 044.3 044.7 044.8 045.8 045.10 045.16 046.5 046.6 046.10 046.15 046.30 046.31 046.35 046.37 046.39 047.11 047.12 047.18 047.38 048.1 048.20 049.1 049.3 049.7 049.16 051.2 051.7 051.8 051.9 051.12 O And to no futile dream of death aspires, And of no emptiness is unforgetful. The ever fresh design of your own fashion. Of the dual flower that alone endures; What though one kingdom each of you forsake, For fields of asphodel and hyacinth, Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, Of pagany, divinely young Apollo, In your steps on the wakened ways of earth Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. That has no counterpart in lands of time Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. No voice to tell of days that were, A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. Of worm that multiplied on worm But now that time is gone of yore Of arabesques the blood-red sun, Amid a realm of sorcery, Out of the window’s smouldering red She scans the shadows of her land, The blood-red waving wastes of sand Of burning, baleful scarlet spun Beyond the lifetime of the sun. A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, Saw only a realm of wet black sand And the slimy things of the slimy dead Of its cold sea-tomb. Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, Of the pulpy head that never grows old, She has yielded to the kiss of night, She dreams of fear. What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves The rush of waves that seek in vain Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Like the ghost of an echoing note Like the rustle of small Like the sound of the sea or the rain, 267 051.20 051.21 051.28 051.30 051.31 051.34 051.40 051.44 051.45 051.54 051.60 051.62 051.63 053.3 053.10 053.12 053.20 054.27 054.51 055.2 055.3 055.5 055.9 055.11 055.14 055.20 057.3 057.8 057.9 057.10 057.22 057.23 057.24 058.1 058.4 059.9 059.14 060.1 060.7 060.8 060.18 061.9 061.11 062.5 062.6 062.7 063.3 063.5 063.9 268 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Murmur of all things that wane, Of the woods to a spot forlorn, Till the coming of dawn. She waits the coming of the golden guest; She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; Of Acherontic streams; The poppies of the dead Of all my timeless lands, Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; More fabulous than all the gems of fame. By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; The lips of Egypt, Troy, Of golden voices that again will speak; The sound of ancient lutes The glory of Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown Of inner ecstasy and exaltation Desired of many but achieved by few. The world of which no tale is handed down. From towers topless as the realms of sleep Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Each vespertime, he wearies of the view As fearful as the haunts of the insane. Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain Of secret worlds that have no name or place. But phantoms; life and death part each of other; Of purple leagues, violet hippogriffs With wings of beating purple flew to me And so I soared on pinions of the night And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. Out of a dusky corner came the stare Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, It fell in parts, and I was part of it. Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. The substance of it in the long ago. But all at once the shell of that cocoon But something from the dark side of the moon Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Around me, solid walls of no escape, Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, 063.10 065.6 065.20 066.6 066.13 067.4 067.12 067.19 067.21 067.23 067.30 067.31 067.34 067.35 067.39 068.10 068.11 068.12 068.14 069.3 069.4 069.9 070.3 070.6 070.8 070.12 071.6 071.7 071.9 071.14 072.5 072.6 072.8 072.13 073.2 073.7 073.10 073.14 074.8 075.8 075.9 075.12 076.10 076.13 077.12 077.13 078.9 078.14 079.12 O Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, Then beating to the chambers of my brain With eyes of golden fury; while a score Of revelers turned statue, and no more And all the little jeweled blades of grass What sense of overhanging doom has made The leering of a huge and sightless eye. By bathing me in streams of molten lead. This never ending night of mounting pain, It merely hinted of the coming week. Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Like me uncertain of their final fate The chewed remains of something used for bait; Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, That pierced the blackness of a starless sky As of a lost and hungry child. Then die The face a group of eyes above a blur With all the dreadful cerements of the grave And of its face no vestige could be seen, And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave No hint of what it once resembled, save And of that thing swept over me a fear What shape of evil? What its foul intent? The naked torso of a goddess glowing Of creepers, and where head should be was growing A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree Of human form or beast, weird sorcery Of bird and fish in nodules like a band Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung I too was fastened on that tree of death. All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, Of wave that smote against colossal wave. Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; I dreamed the waters of the world had died, There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied A city of a vast antiquity. I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, And in the fading vision of my sleep And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, Weary of all desires grown monotonous, 269 080.7 080.11 080.12 081.6 081.7 082.3 083.7 083.14 084.4 084.13 084.14 086.4 087.3 087.6 088.3 089.3 089.7 089.12 090.2 090.5 090.6 090.7 090.9 091.2 092.4 092.8 092.9 092.10 092.12 093.3 093.7 093.8 093.9 093.14 094.1 094.2 094.6 094.10 094.11 094.13 095.1 095.5 095.6 095.9 095.10 095.12 096.4 096.5 096.7 270 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Delights of Ispahan. Things of small worth to me. And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, When of this pastime tiring. The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, And dream caravans of Nirvana are beholden, Of earthly ecstasy. And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, Of caravans that throng Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell And leave behind me all the weary works of man, Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! The dust of centuries lies on her head; Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed The endless silence of the endless dead; There is no picture of her dear dead face, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; In the mystical burning pallor of the moon By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses Dreaming of Her. The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover With a sweet rapture of shame. Of flowers and marvellous jasper and coral grasses I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; All things are symbols of eternal death— The ruined relics of the ancient past, The dying wonder of the world that is, The sum of all man knows, the sum of all The years since Time began, the sum of thought, The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum Of all the stars and all the universe, Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Of some white form that made a rattling sound; In gummy cloths of long and human hair. As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; 096.8 096.12 096.18 096.29 096.32 096.33 096.38 096.43 096.49 096.50 096.53 096.59 096.66 096.92 096.93 096.95 096.98 098.2 098.3 098.4 098.7 099.2 099.3 099.6 099.10 101.2 101.4 101.8 101.11 101.15 101.18 101.19 101.20 101.24 101.27 102.5 102.6 102.7 102.16 102.17 102.18 102.19 104.3 104.6 104.8 104.13 105.9 105.11 106.2 O 271 There was a crackle as of blazing wood, 106.7 Upon all things of life and time and space; 107.2 Of death itself, there now was left no trace, 107.3 Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; 107.6 Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, 107.13 Dream of forgetful day, 109.6 The worlds of sleep and waking, 109.17 On fields of noon, 109.28 With refluence of flame 109.30 Of phantoms move; 109.36 Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses 110.1 Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; 110.10 It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, 110.15 A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces 111.1 Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; 111.2 A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places 111.3 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: 111.6 To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; 111.10 When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: 112.2 We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. 112.3 We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, 112.5 From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping 112.9 When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew 113.4 Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, 113.5 And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her 113.7 Content to know the image of the dream, 113.11 A music-maker, lord of sorcery. 113.12 Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime 113.13 113.14 Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace 114.6 Of lips too tender; your precise array. 114.8 Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; 115.4 Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours 115.6 You are the fairest of the lovely whom 116.1 For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom 116.5 For things external, but of higher worth, 116.10 I love you for the realms of endless view, 116.11 You care for that warm house of all your own, 117.2 Of modes that will not match despite your pains. 117.8 Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. 117.14 A counterpart of what is still to be? 118.10 Encysted from the sight of other eyes; 119.2 Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. 119.8 For I give love like sips of precious wine 119.13 The deadly hardness of reality, 120.11 Till acids of experience undeceive 121.8 272 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of daggers, fair appearances retreat The fall of footsteps light and pantherine And of my presence, I could feel no sign Of recognition, nor was I to stay I have met darker nights than that of old, From the fury of living. Nothing of farthest or nearest, Nothing of future or present, I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, With the breath of the web-faced things asleep Out of the sky, a black star shines, Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, And the miles of rotten bogs. Footprints of a man-bat woven With the fresher tracks of cloven Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. Her eyes of eidotrope, Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, She liked the texture of a lily, The sight of goblets cool and rounded, The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, Devoid of mirth, devoid of feeling; Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, Their elders have promised them a day of returning, And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; I hear them in the rubble of defaced land In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I am the master of each living thing, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, I am wisdom of my own self blind, Of man I sing. Of man I tire. I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, From the riddle of the rib Of infant in the crib I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, 121.11 122.1 122.3 122.4 122.9 123.12 123.17 123.18 124.5 124.9 125.1 125.2 125.3 125.17 125.21 126.8 126.13 126.14 127.2 127.5 127.11 127.13 128.1 128.2 128.3 128.34 129.7 129.8 129.14 129.16 130.1 130.5 130.10 130.16 130.17 131.2 131.5 131.6 131.14 133.2 133.3 133.4 133.5 133.7 133.19 133.23 133.39 133.44 133.53 O Of right or wrong, Of why the plan Of unknown timeless land; Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Of black and radiant night. And a smell of dandelions was The names of all the Roman towns; To prove the brilliance of their wits, Peopled with ghosts of their invention, And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” Within the limits of his nose, For surely none would think of spurning Such dazzling stores of useless learning! The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The elder gods have promised a day of returning And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, None of these things can bother me Till a quarter of twelve, It’s the break of day, It’s a quarter of twelve, And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze Down the far closure of the valley, sky, Off Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, Offends Offends my nostrils, Offends my nostrils. Go! Offensive “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” Offer DEATH: I offer thee such dreams I offer thee the moan I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain DEATH: I offer thee the wealth I offer thee phantasmal gems DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: I offer thee For this I offer thee: Oh Poet, this I offer thee, Death: I offer you such dreams I offer you the moan I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain Death: I offer you the wealth I offer you phantasmal gems Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: I offer all I offer to my students gratis, Often She often made the first down payment, 273 133.69 133.70 134.3 134.4 134.12 136.11 137.4 138.10 138.14 138.22 138.25 138.37 138.38 141.1 141.5 141.10 141.16 141.17 142.9 143.2 143.4 143.10 145.5 146.9 147.2 147.6 063.12 012.9 067.9 139.12 012.1 012.3 012.5 012.18 012.22 012.27 012.38 012.45 012.50 067.1 067.3 067.5 067.18 067.22 067.27 067.38 137.16 128.7 274 Oh Old A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Forsaken often, she forsook Oh, spring is gone Oh, the nights are long Oh, spring is gone Oh, the nights are long Even as I, Oh Myrrhiline, But even thou, Oh Myrrhiline, DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: Oh Poet, this I offer thee, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! Oh color hideous, appalling, mad, Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, Oh enchantment that entices, Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: Oh little creature, lost in time and space, Oh little creature, whether old or young, Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Oh love, it is enough that I may be Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I, “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; Oh what a classicist am I. see also Age-Old Autumn is old The flowers of old are overblown, Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, I weary of the old monotony of things; In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought And old ennui. Whose dream of old is gone Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness He seeks to allay the old desire, With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! Was there a goddess in the days of old, Thine eyes were old when God was born, Valerian! Thine eyes are old And the old stars are sunken The storied queens of old? 128.23 002.1 002.3 002.31 002.33 004.10 004.41 012.11 012.27 012.50 012.53 017.9 017.17 033.39 044.5 051.27 051.47 051.55 051.56 051.57 051.58 067.11 067.27 073.12 077.1 077.9 077.13 114.13 137.1 137.19 137.27 137.29 002.10 004.56 006.6 013.1 013.9 013.28 014.13 015.35 018.10 022.10 027.1 030.9 030.49 033.23 041.10 O Whisper of the days of old, One old familiar face I found One old familiar face I found. Old prophecies alone accompany her. Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Silent, still, old, dead; As deathless and old as the deathless sea, Of the pulpy head that never grows old, What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? On the old and grass-covered mound My old companions waited all around: Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. Oh little creature, whether old or young, Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; With weary steps to the old, original end. I have met darker nights than that of old, Why am I old? Thus am I old. To ponder old, unsated malices. And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came Would be as old as papa Perkins, Who plainly wasn’t old enough? Olden And forget worlds olden? When all the olden days are over, With olden dead endeavor all erased, Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, To poppy legend olden. Older The older glory of the days that were Oldest And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; Oleander Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom Olibanum Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Olive Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Olive-Grove Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? On Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; On the dead earth; On the autumnal gust; Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; A lonely traveler on another star; And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; 275 047.12 049.15 049.21 053.15 054.24 054.58 057.17 057.24 059.9 065.15 072.2 074.1 074.8 077.9 096.5 107.13 112.6 112.12 122.9 123.11 123.15 127.15 128.15 138.30 138.34 033.30 039.1 051.6 096.55 134.18 026.12 036.6 096.26 096.35 018.2 015.18 003.14 009.10 009.18 010.2 013.18 014.11 014.30 015.5 015.9 017.15 018.6 276 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled Then, on this paper now so blank and white, With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, On curious corpses, gold and green. They gazed on stars that now are dust, They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. With torture on their burning spits. On the meads that are rarest, And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; I watched on earth the littler things around; On the nectar of love I have fed, I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, On a purple throne. On the cities sleeping there On Atlantis dreaming, dreaming On the sunken shore. For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead On which such sunfire beat. That hung on our deep sea-graves. And Psyche hover on the summer air. In your steps on the wakened ways of earth All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; That presses on my grave and me, rolled Of worm that multiplied on worm An unseen step on the creeping moss— But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne It reigned on its multiple thrones. There is pressure on her blood-red lips, On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, The rocks on a sunken shore. Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds Arabesques on a tomb. She will sink on the cold, cold ground, On the old and grass-covered mound She will rest on the lawn; Will watch while she waits on the stone; And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on And so I soared on pinions of the night For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Then at the top I stood on magic squares With signs unreadable, on each the shard I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. 020.11 024.13 025.5 026.8 027.3 030.24 030.33 030.34 030.48 033.10 034.11 036.22 036.36 036.44 043.30 045.3 046.32 047.9 047.17 047.21 048.5 048.12 048.16 051.37 051.45 054.13 054.22 054.27 056.3 056.7 057.2 057.20 058.5 058.9 059.11 060.9 060.11 060.12 065.12 065.13 065.15 065.18 065.22 066.11 071.9 074.3 074.5 074.7 075.2 O Once Had I, although I knew on what it fed, Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. On long, metallic clang, the brazen door Past them the leopards led me on and on And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. Whatever on the other side should lie, They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying A glowing form, it drifted on a course A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. I too was fastened on that tree of death. And weird encrusted forms on every side. The dust of centuries lies on her head; They would not burn me quickly on their spit; There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood And DOOM had fallen on the universe. On fields of noon, We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom The lands no traveller ever found on earth; And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, Were errors that have lost their hold on me. On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, A slain man moans on a pointed stake And paid for all, on some occasions. Heretical eyes is casually hung on a chair; On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. And listen always as I journey on alone. I am sunlight on the hill, Building on to what goal later, Not on earth nor anywhere But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Falling on the window-pane On which the cool green rain gleams. Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. Nothing on earth can bother me, The cat on the fence, and world conditions, Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Once lyrical with pagan melody. Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing That once a poet lived and loved and died, And once thy purple eyes went blind 277 075.7 078.8 081.2 081.9 082.14 083.12 084.1 084.2 084.8 085.5 085.11 088.4 089.6 090.13 092.11 093.14 095.8 099.2 103.5 106.3 107.4 109.28 112.7 116.5 116.12 120.2 120.14 125.19 125.22 125.23 128.20 129.15 131.4 131.16 133.20 133.62 133.65 134.2 134.14 136.2 136.10 137.18 142.2 142.4 147.1 012.37 015.37 026.6 030.41 278 One A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei That once ran red as blood And we will part, as once we parted No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. Once he was pale with love of me, We turned and set forth once more, My corpse was once a festering sore A noisome pool as once before. Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, But all at once the shell of that cocoon No hint of what it once resembled, save And all strange things once covered by the sea That once was man. But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, Even as one who loves thee, Love, As one who of strange pleasure sips, For one intoxicating night were mine. All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— And after this, there came to me one green Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, And still for this one dream all else forsaking I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, And one by one with the setting sun One old familiar face I found One old familiar face I found. So few the days, so much that one could know, So dark whichever pathway one may go, And years of striving in one moment ended. What though one kingdom each of you forsake, Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Before me, one closed portal, and the flow One thought more torturing usurped my brain, The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; And after this, there came to me one green I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside Save one upon a dais standing tall, 039.11 039.22 040.4 046.10 048.2 054.48 054.54 069.13 075.9 090.7 095.3 133.72 134.2 134.10 134.23 003.1 004.3 004.74 007.20 007.39 012.51 014.33 022.7 029.1 031.13 036.59 045.3 048.23 049.15 049.21 050.1 050.3 051.7 051.31 051.57 051.61 059.8 061.11 073.1 074.6 075.1 078.10 084.10 086.13 087.5 090.1 091.9 091.13 092.3 O Ones Only 279 No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree 093.3 But could not move or even draw one breath: 093.13 The waters mounted in one surge whose swell 094.5 All nature whispers but her one word: Death. 102.9 And found, the one reality is Death. 102.13 And find, the one reality is Death. 102.15 Its voice in one vast song 109.34 We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning 112.1 Though all my days were added one by one, 115.1 Differed so, each from each, and this one more 115.7 For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. 115.14 Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom 118.11 Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? 119.11 The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, 122.5 From the one reciting there. 136.6 Say, sixty-five, not one day under, 138.32 Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise 119.7 And lovers, fat ones, old ones, came 128.15 The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. 141.12 Only now do we live. 004.70 But only an ancient, buried passion sings. 007.64 Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. 008.14 Lie only shards of that dread doom 010.15 And yet, in all my travels I could only find 013.15 You only live when all worth living’s lost. 017.20 But only and ever his flesh is burning, 018.11 Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; 035.2 We only left her body lying still and deep; 035.10 We left her only to the waiting earth that gave 035.11 Where only courage of lost hope could ravel 036.3 Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, 036.39 I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem 036.46 Along starroads with only moonglow paven 037.6 Her garments only know what curves and hollows 041.11 Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, 043.3 Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? 043.4 Was it only for darkness to blind me, 043.7 Art thou only a phantom before me, 043.11 Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? 043.27 I was the only colour when 046.3 His sunken eyes could only see 046.11 Memories only wander where 047.6 Only slimy creatures stare 047.8 Only fishes keep a seeming 047.19 280 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Only phantom poppies blow, 047.29 Only spectral lilies grow 047.30 Only growths and fishes dwell 047.37 No love endures if love be only passion 051.22 And no love lasts if love be only mind, 051.23 Only you. 052.4 Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, 054.28 I only sighed to feel them play 054.30 Saw only a realm of wet black sand 057.8 To this he gives his only adoration, 068.13 Whose source could only, be some fearful shape 078.11 In all this hideous land the only soul. 085.6 I only find more ennui in philosophies, 096.61 To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, 096.100 Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. 099.4 I only know she died in Mytilene. 099.14 Or only sleep? 101.30 With only rotting corpses lying by, 103.7 We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, 112.15 Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, 113.6 How fair you were, if you were only fair, 116.3 And more for beauty, only known to me. 116.14 And it may be that you will find it only 118.7 Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? 119.11 I am a fool, for only fools would trust 121.1 And only echo answer a low call. 122.12 Only you, and the past, my dearest 123.19 If your name were only Mabel 135.7 And it only rhymes with turtle...... 135.11 The coeds only get along 138.6 Goddess or devil or only human, 140.11 Only do we who knew you feel the source, 146.8 Onward Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, 036.41 Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, 069.12 As I went onward toward those upper lairs. 074.4 I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, 085.13 I struggled onward though my strength was spent 091.3 Ooze That dead body in the ooze. 126.12 Opal The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, 044.6 Opalescent Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall 127.3 Ope And ope 127.14 Oped And when they oped they could not find 030.43 Open see also Half-Open Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; 038.14 The door must open, showing why the hue 078.13 The ocean beds were open now, and free, 095.2 And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; 130.14 O I hear them in the open and in hallways, Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; Opens A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes Opium Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, Opium-Dream The world is an opium-dream; Oppresses And weariness of life oppresses me; Or Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; He walks where none can know or see, Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness Or as the futile, giant music made Or remain by the willows Or be bathed in new glory, Or from transitory No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, I have not found it sleeping or awaking. Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; To capture moods that change or leave; Should love be told in brede or breve? Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Mine the love that can fade not or falter, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call That almost hissed or the shimmering mist Or purple, dear to children of the dust, Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Or gilded idols undeserving trust, Or space; Or in my dead flesh foul to float, Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Or whirls Or rests where an ocean current laves Or speeds Like the sound of the sea or the rain, Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. Of secret worlds that have no name or place. I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face Oh little creature, whether old or young, 281 131.15 134.10 141.14 101.14 096.31 064.1 007.54 001.12 013.14 014.9 015.19 015.35 031.3 033.27 033.29 033.31 036.38 036.57 038.14 042.11 042.14 043.16 043.19 043.25 045.10 048.15 051.2 051.3 051.4 053.4 054.44 059.11 060.2 060.10 060.14 063.9 063.12 069.6 069.8 070.8 070.10 072.11 075.11 077.4 077.9 282 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of human form or beast, weird sorcery But could not move or even draw one breath: Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Take, or the taking never will be thine; I know not whether she was slave or queen; Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, Or only sleep? And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. If in your head or heart, there were not room Or think that those sweet words were meant to be From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe Nothing of farthest or nearest, Nothing of future or present, Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; I hear them wide awake or part way resting, Or much greater, Or starfire care Of right or wrong, Or know the song Where none could know or share. However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Or any other words to jar ’em; Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. Goddess or devil or only human, Or twilight’s fall Who liked it above or below, In front or behind, Orb’s Ever the orb’s fantastic glare Orchid A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. Orchids Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, Tumescent orchids swart with hair. Original With weary steps to the old, original end. Orion’s Orion’s mad, metallic queen; Other In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought But found no other than the great refrain: Where other universes flow. No other form is near, But phantoms; life and death part each of other; That clove through midnight where no other stirred, Whatever on the other side should lie, And all around their other victims wait, Encysted from the sight of other eyes; Or any other words to jar ’em; And other such-like things as that is 093.7 093.13 096.26 096.31 096.64 097.6 099.11 099.12 101.30 104.11 107.6 115.14 116.4 121.4 121.6 123.17 123.18 128.22 131.6 131.9 133.64 133.68 133.69 133.71 134.6 134.14 137.12 137.24 140.11 143.5 144.2 144.3 055.13 101.13 006.1 030.16 112.12 030.22 013.9 014.19 030.40 058.10 070.12 079.5 083.12 087.2 119.2 137.12 137.15 O 283 Others Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. 087.8 Othertime In their hidden othertime long fled. 006.4 Otherwise And truths I could not otherwise discover. 120.12 Ought Are things that never ought to bore ’em. 137.22 They also ought to know their Caesar, 137.23 Our A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; 003.10 Of our love. 003.16 Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking 003.19 We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble 003.31 There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever 003.39 For a little while, our life is bright, 004.31 And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, 007.11 Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; 07.14 But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, 007.17 That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. 007.24 Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, 007.29 But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. 007.52 Apocalyptic prophet of our doom, 017.10 Our task was done. 035.8 Our thoughts will be more sad than death is 039.4 But we turned too late and we knew our fate 048.3 That hung on our deep sea-graves. 048.16 The shadows slipped from our side. 048.24 And celebrate our festival. 049.4 The sun lay warm along our way, 049.8 And cast them for our footfall where 049.13 The sun lay warm along our way. 049.14 Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, 049.26 Returning humbly our own love whose force, 146.6 Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. 146.7 Ours There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever 003.39 Ourselves Let us give over ourselves to delight, 004.51 Out That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, 024.11 Out of oblivion, no voice will stir 026.9 Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, 034.2 Fronds from out its temples rise; 047.22 Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay 051.59 Out of the window’s smouldering red 055.5 Out of a dusky corner came the stare 072.5 I watched them till, from out the greater dark, 074.9 Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! 083.9 Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery 093.6 Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, 105.9 284 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, Out of the sky, a black star shines, And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, Outcast Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? Outer Of sights and sounds of outer space, And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; Outer-Lands The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow Outlasting Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. Outlined Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, Outlive Never will mortal outlive the tomb— Outside Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon Outward Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Outways I am dust in cosmic outways resting, Over Let us give over ourselves to delight, And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling Over his breasts his fingers hover, Over his loins his deep eyes rove. Through them and over them—what shall be found When all the olden days are over, And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And over all a choral singing. Over the treetops, under the boughs, Over the dreaming grass; Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration And of that thing swept over me a fear Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, Over the jeweled grass, For the times that are over, Lips parting and closing over the draught her I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; Over all the tall wet grass. While over us the wind at twilight soughs, Overblown The flowers of old are overblown, Will be as perished poppies overblown Overflowing Red roses in the overflowing wine. 110.1 111.1 111.3 112.2 113.14 124.11 125.1 125.2 125.17 130.10 141.10 015.36 030.26 036.6 096.101 051.42 015.26 004.37 105.7 092.5 133.24 004.51 015.13 018.3 018.4 038.3 039.1 044.3 049.27 062.8 065.2 066.5 090.9 101.16 101.21 109.10 123.7 129.2 131.10 136.12 147.3 004.56 026.13 097.8 O Overflung And garlands overflung Overhanging What sense of overhanging doom has made Overlook And overlook the underlying thrust, Overpowering And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, Overrun That her domain has overrun. Overscents Quite overscents the room, Overspread With that wild color overspread, Overtaken When death has been captured and time overtaken, When death has been captured and time overtaken, Overtone To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; Owed And for the rest, she owed, and owed. Own With lips that to thine own lips burn, Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, And in the waters saw my own face drown, From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. The ever fresh design of your own fashion. And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled It was my own; my own face showed that hue, My own the lineaments that seemed to be Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. You care for that warm house of all your own, Her own reflections in a mirror. She hated all lies, save her own, I am wisdom of my own self blind, I am my own final taker, The true believer makes his own faith all along Returning humbly our own love whose force, Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. Oyster Each pedagogue, a happy oyster, 285 012.29 083.7 121.3 007.27 055.12 096.27 055.7 130.11 141.11 111.10 128.8 004.77 007.29 011.24 015.31 028.14 051.28 051.43 054.23 073.5 073.6 073.11 094.3 096.13 112.3 117.2 128.12 128.29 133.5 133.11 134.20 146.6 146.9 138.24 P Paced Paces Pagan So endlessly, so wearily, you paced And slowly paces to an inner hall, But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, Once lyrical with pagan melody. A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; Of pagany, divinely young Apollo, That play for pagan festival. Pages The scattered symbols of those closing pages We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, For she paid half, when they went Dutch, And paid for all, on some occasions. Paid They paid him to seduce ’em! Pain Like the pain in a passionate note The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, Passing in pain; Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? Pain, and a choral delight; An eagerness; and pain upon his features As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, I begged the gods to save me from such pain. This never ending night of mounting pain, All pleasure and all pain, Pains Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, Of modes that will not match despite your pains. Paint To paint the things I never shall relate. Palace The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, I have dwelt in the palace Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, Before the palace a beacon flares, From the palace, a marble monster whines, Mysterious as her sunken palace is, Palaces Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, Pale And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses Once he was pale with love of me, And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight While its pale eyes kept watching patiently Rise in the pale starlight, 037.5 069.10 007.17 012.37 015.4 015.23 015.38 051.44 067.37 036.35 112.7 128.19 128.20 140.12 001.3 007.28 007.30 009.14 017.4 021.4 059.6 070.2 080.10 084.13 096.69 018.7 117.8 025.14 003.5 033.7 081.8 125.6 125.14 125.18 127.12 096.13 020.3 046.10 056.8 061.3 073.3 109.14 P Pale-Green The death of pale-green bloated things. Pall We left her staring at the musty pall, In night’s eternal pall. I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, Pallor In the mystical burning pallor of the moon Pan And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing Pan is gone. Pane see Window-Pane Pan’s From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning Pantherine The fall of footsteps light and pantherine The footsteps pantherine upon the ground. Papa Would be as old as papa Perkins, Paper Then, on this paper now so blank and white, Paphian By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; Parade And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? Paradisal Of their paradisal heaven. Paradise I, Paradise. To love’s sad paradise. Though this were Paradise, and Paradise Paragon A paragon, except in virtue, Pardon “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” Part And we will part, as once we parted Then live! Live in this dual love, partake But phantoms; life and death part each of other; Part human creatures creeping from their lair. It fell in parts, and I was part of it. A giant shape part human, part despair, I hear them wide awake or part way resting, Parted And we will part, as once we parted Participant We have been participant and passer-by. Parting Lips parting and closing over the draught her Parts It fell in parts, and I was part of it. Patiently While its pale eyes kept watching patiently Pass We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, We shall pass. But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, Pass, with all joy that passes, Pass, with pleasure that fades 287 030.12 035.3 045.12 046.6 101.4 015.7 015.11 015.23 015.34 015.37 015.48 015.31 122.1 122.14 138.30 025.5 012.30 026.14 067.30 042.8 033.8 046.24 096.42 115.9 128.25 139.2 039.22 051.29 070.12 072.4 073.14 089.11 131.9 039.22 112.8 129.2 073.14 073.3 003.15 003.25 004.48 007.41 009.13 009.15 288 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The presences pass everywhere Tremors across his white flesh pass. And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb Secret the winds that hollowly pass Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, As the wind she will pass. This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; Joys that pass and youth too fleet, A million million men will live and pass, That all would pass, that nothing would abide. And footsteps seem to pass While I pass by And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings For he has passed from stage to stage, He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, They passed the land where flowers gnaw And then passed by. But when I passed and left them in their gloom, I thought ironic laughter passed me by. A million million men have lived and passed, Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Came near me, passed, and faintly died away; 010.7 018.8 026.3 038.2 046.47 065.4 082.2 100.5 102.14 107.11 109.11 133.41 007.35 011.9 013.3 014.32 024.1 030.23 046.40 081.13 085.8 102.12 115.8 122.2 We have been participant and passer-by. Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Pass, with all joy that passes, Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes That scarcely passes soon The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, Passing Let us forget the passing of years, Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, Passing in pain; The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, Passion A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, That love and passion weary all too soon. 112.8 001.1 009.13 063.1 096.57 101.17 101.21 134.13 004.52 007.59 009.14 013.3 035.2 Passed Passer-by Passes 043.13 003.10 003.21 003.22 003.31 003.39 007.7 007.16 P But only an ancient, buried passion sings. A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? No love endures if love be only passion And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, I come to men with unrequiting passion, Passionate Like the pain in a passionate note I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Thy body now so passionate And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, But dawn destroyed our passionate delight. To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, From a meadowlark’s passionate throat, Passion-Born The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; Passionlessly Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Passions In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. Passion’s Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. Passive In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching Past The years of the past have long since flown, The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, For ever mounting past the realm of light, And traveled backward past the age of man In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, All past and future. Traveler, stay! Past them the leopards led me on and on All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; Somewhere past Ispahan. The ruined relics of the ancient past, With wonder past all knowing, To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; Only you, and the past, my dearest And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, 289 007.64 015.4 015.14 043.1 043.25 051.22 096.4 119.9 001.3 003.3 003.35 004.21 007.11 007.52 015.23 019.1 021.1 063.4 003.6 006.7 043.15 101.12 101.28 127.10 006.8 003.17 004.55 004.68 024.9 036.18 043.13 067.50 081.9 096.71 096.102 102.6 109.25 112.10 123.19 134.8 290 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Past golden poppy’s lure, Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, And past the winding river’s end you gaze, Pastime When of this pastime tiring. Pastures The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; Path Upon an endless path forever going To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. The primrose path she rarely took Paths In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, Pathway So dark whichever pathway one may go, Patter And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. Pattern The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, Patterned see Shadow-Patterned Patterns Made mad songs and patterns of, Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Pause Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, They dragged me back with never pause for rest. Paused I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. Pave Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Paven Along starroads with only moonglow paven Pay For my escape I knew what I must pay: Payment She often made the first down payment, Peace Peace. In vain for peace. I further search with neither hope nor peace Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, Pearls Her coral isles and shadowy pearls I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, Peasants Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Pebble And a pebble necklace around his head Pebbles Pebbles and beetles and layers of earth, Pedagogic And in this pedagogic cloister, Pedagogue Each pedagogue, a happy oyster, Pedants The pedants utter strange conceits Peep In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep Peer They gave me back my eyes so I could peer Peered I peered amid those waters black and still. He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky I peered far down the final future ages, Peering Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: Pen I was the first to tinge his pen; 134.9 134.10 147.4 096.33 095.11 036.61 082.10 128.21 043.13 050.3 062.5 122.5 046.35 114.7 116.6 037.13 086.5 011.17 029.3 090.3 037.6 086.3 128.7 004.83 013.32 036.60 044.5 060.4 096.19 069.7 038.15 038.6 138.23 138.24 138.9 054.39 087.9 011.21 014.2 014.17 036.33 104.4 046.2 P When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew You have never been inspiring to my pen. Peopled Peopled with ghosts of their invention, Perfect And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, Whose perfect euphony would be as clear Till beauty into perfect beauty swoons; And perfect students, all in rhythm, Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. Perfection Perfection gains by contrast and may be Perfectly “But I’m perfectly moral.” Perfume Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Perfumes The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; Perilous Of buried kings, and empires perilous; Perish To perish when my later footsteps came; Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Perished Have perished in ruinous gardens fair The sound of perished lutes Will be as perished poppies overblown In a madness it has perished, And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, Perishing Like a perishing star, Perkins Would be as old as papa Perkins, Permitted And when my steed permitted me to light, Persian With the lithe Persian, Person “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” Personal Personal instruction. Pervert She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Pest By the legions of the pest. Pet Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, Petals Petals tremulous with dew at dawn For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: Blown petals that fall, From having watched the dead rose petals strew Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair The golden petals burn, Phallic A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. Phantasmal I offer thee phantasmal gems Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, I offer you phantasmal gems Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, Phantom 291 113.4 135.6 138.14 007.35 028.12 051.53 138.27 138.28 117.11 139.13 129.10 101.7 026.11 036.52 043.27 004.59 012.35 026.13 033.22 036.10 001.8 138.30 071.12 096.9 139.1 139.3 140.4 128.27 048.20 087.7 004.58 040.6 063.6 068.3 097.1 134.5 134.15 101.13 012.22 025.10 061.9 067.22 113.5 292 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. The phantom that so greatly I desired Art thou only a phantom before me, Only phantom poppies blow, A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. And I, and all that phantom city, died. The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Phantoms Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly But phantoms; life and death part each of other; Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. Of phantoms move; Phials We will pour ashes from the phials Philological And philological relations, Philosophies I only find more ennui in philosophies, Phosphorescent Phosphorescent creatures go But inbetween; whose phosphorescent glow, Phrase And any Latin phrase can quote, Phrases Remember phrases with a vague surprise Your polished phrases spoken carefully, Piccadilly The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, Pick see also Stone-Pick To watch a little creature pick Picture Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, There is no picture of her dear dead face, Pieces-of-Eight Working hard for pieces-of-eight, Pierced That pierced the blackness of a starless sky Pilgrimage Abyssal pilgrimage undaunted, strong Pillow A cool dark pillow, a comforting bed, She will pillow her head Pillows I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Pines On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines Pinions Where soaring pinions And so I soared on pinions of the night Pink see Rose-Pink Pipe-Line Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, Piper’s In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, 027.14 036.53 043.11 047.29 053.20 086.14 130.3 130.19 141.3 141.19 006.24 043.12 045.15 070.12 106.14 109.36 039.10 137.14 096.61 047.27 075.4 137.6 120.3 121.2 128.3 030.15 006.17 025.2 099.10 142.6 089.3 024.7 038.13 065.14 096.8 125.19 034.12 071.9 145.4 015.14 P Pipes As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; Pit Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Pits With visions of the stellar pits, Pitter And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. Pity Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, And win the prof’s eternal pity, There was a young man—such a pity!— Place She will halt in a secret place Of secret worlds that have no name or place. I can not find, nor do I seem to place Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above In all infinity was left no place Placed As the forgotten girls who placed them there. Places In those mysterious lands and alien places Her face is sweeter than those fabled places A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places Plague For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead From heat and plague as they died, Plague-Filled From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Plain I looked across the great plain warily. What followed me across the lifeless plain? Plainly That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Who plainly wasn’t old enough? Plaintive I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Plan Of why the plan Planes From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Planet For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. Upon the ruined planet dwell Planks Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Plants Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. Platitudes Exhume forgotten platitudes Play And I shall play Nymphs to play. Revel and welcome, games and play I only sighed to feel them play That play for pagan festival. She loved to play a dangerous game To play God, Played How all my days are as an aria played Playing Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing Please Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Pleased Believed no truth except what pleased her; 293 015.11 015.31 015.38 087.1 103.1 030.46 062.5 044.5 138.7 145.1 065.9 070.8 077.5 096.47 107.7 004.60 036.45 041.3 111.3 048.5 048.22 048.1 082.5 091.1 120.4 138.34 096.23 133.70 130.16 141.16 008.12 010.21 120.6 025.12 138.15 004.75 015.8 049.5 054.30 067.37 128.13 133.17 031.1 015.37 096.64 128.30 294 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Pleases She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases Pleasure As one who of strange pleasure sips, When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, Pass, with pleasure that fades To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, All pleasure and all pain, Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! The subtle pleasure that you give to me, Pleasureful And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine Pleasures For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; All pleasures I have ever found have been as gall. I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; Plenilune Have seen the blood-red plenilune. Plenty Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Plumb We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Plump All it would find was a plump drowned rat Pod see Puff-Pod Pods Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery Poe Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; Poems Poems for Beauty’s own enraptured ear. Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, Poet THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, Oh Poet, this I offer thee, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! That once a poet lived and loved and died, Poetry Her loveliness in poetry lies never. Romantic dreams, illusions, poetry, Poets By forgotten poets told. Pogany There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice Point And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; Pointed A slain man moans on a pointed stake Poison And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, 041.7 004.74 005.5 006.3 007.13 007.41 009.15 086.7 096.13 096.53 096.69 098.5 114.10 119.10 003.18 013.5 013.13 013.14 030.4 115.4 003.15 057.15 093.6 129.7 028.14 136.7 012.7 012.11 012.17 012.26 012.27 012.43 012.44 012.50 012.53 026.6 041.15 120.13 047.15 129.5 124.11 125.23 007.9 P And bitter all the poison that it brings; Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Poisonous Poisonous and beautiful and dead; All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Dim citadel, all dank and poisonous, Poked While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked Polished And polished ebony, Your polished phrases spoken carefully, Politicians Great big moonfaced politicians, Pomp Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, Pool Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Within the pool so fathomless and dark. A noisome pool as once before. I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; Pools And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Pool’s I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. Pomp To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, To ponder old, unsated malices. Poor Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— Poppies Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting The poppies of the dead She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, Will be as perished poppies overblown Only phantom poppies blow, The poppies of the dead Poppy Lily and poppy and rose are gone, The poppy yielded you demented dreams, White poppy of the crimson eve— Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light The golden poppy folds and each eternal I To poppy legend olden. And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom Poppy-Lipped And your mouth poppy-lipped, Poppy’s For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: Past golden poppy’s lure, Popular The school was more than popular 295 007.62 043.25 006.2 007.2 011.16 048.17 096.15 121.2 142.3 016.1 011.14 011.20 054.54 071.13 078.14 106.2 056.8 127.2 011.9 026.10 127.15 069.6 129.3 001.11 009.21 012.12 019.2 026.13 047.29 067.12 004.57 017.13 042.2 043.32 134.1 134.5 134.11 134.16 134.18 134.22 134.23 096.45 040.6 134.9 140.5 296 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Pore And rotten in each swelling pore, Porphyry The flowing porphyry Portal To seek some image far behind some portal Before me, one closed portal, and the flow I knocked upon the portal till with clang Portion Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, Portraits In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice Possess Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Possessed He was possessed with my red flame, Possesses Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, Beauty possesses, but would not care Post Emily Post, and thieves in state; Post-Historic When post-historic revels will unfetter them, When post-historic revels will unfetter them, Pounced Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source Pour We will pour ashes from the phials My body will not pour That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; Poured The rapturous music poured in lyric streams Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; Pouring And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. O Love, my world is pouring Powder Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Power Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, With power he grew intoxicate, The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, But punish, since their power I dared to test. Praise Of those who came to praise this day Pray Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, Prayer Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, Precincts Within those precincts of the spectral night’s Precious For I give love like sips of precious wine Precipices To fall amid colossal precipices. Precise Of lips too tender; your precise array. Prehistoric The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, Presence And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And of my presence, I could feel no sign Presences 054.49 032.1 036.19 078.10 081.1 007.33 129.6 008.8 046.21 096.53 110.2 116.2 142.5 130.6 141.6 074.13 039.10 054.53 106.6 015.30 017.15 084.2 034.9 109.33 129.10 016.1 046.29 076.11 086.8 049.3 042.3 042.9 042.15 042.19 096.80 096.77 110.15 011.15 119.13 079.14 114.8 059.3 044.3 122.3 P The presences pass everywhere Just presences, unseen, unknown While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary Present And never will the present cease, Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; Nothing of future or present, Preserve That still preserve dark ancient stains Preserved And thus preserved her innocence. Press And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; Pressed see Soft-Pressed Presses That presses on my grave and me, rolled Pressure There is pressure on her blood-red lips, Pre-Time’s Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; Pretty Though I know that you are pretty, Especially when their knees are pretty. Prey Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? Priceless And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? Prick Assume new meaning and become the prick Priest Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, Primordial Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; Primrose The primrose path she rarely took Prince And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her Princess A princess are, with beauty lovelier Princesses I know there are no princesses, but you Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime Prisoned Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, Prof And every prof, a second Firkins, For who could ever be a prof. Prof’s And win the prof’s eternal pity, Professorial A model professorial wonder, Progressing Progressing slowly underneath the door Promised For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, I promised you a villanelle, I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle; Their elders have promised them a day of returning, The elder gods have promised a day of returning Prophecies 297 010.7 010.22 045.11 004.78 096.55 096.71 112.3 112.10 123.18 010.3 128.40 003.26 054.22 058.5 036.20 135.4 138.8 105.8 027.7 121.10 043.9 036.20 128.21 113.7 113.2 113.1 113.13 006.19 138.29 138.33 138.7 138.31 078.2 019.7 042.1 042.6 042.12 042.18 130.5 141.5 298 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Old prophecies alone accompany her. Prophesied Where legend prophesied divinity, Prophet Apocalyptic prophet of our doom, Prophetic The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, Protruded Alone protruded from the desert sand, Proud Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Prove To prove the brilliance of their wits, Proved His realms were vacua, he proved his vow You proved illusion not more strong than oaken Psyche And Psyche hover on the summer air. Puff-Pod But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss Pulls A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, Pulpy Of the pulpy head that never grows old, That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. Pulses That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. Pulsing The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone Punish But punish, since their power I dared to test. Pupils That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. Pure I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, The clear, pure warble of a nightingale Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, Purer Purer than earthly creatures’, Purple Thy purple eyes, Valerian, Thy purple haunted eyes are mad And once thy purple eyes went blind Their purple vision fade and die, Purple My royal robes like a purple ghost On a purple throne. Or purple, dear to children of the dust, There where I wandered, purple shadows ran Across a purple ground to purple cliffs And back; and purple suns flamed northerly Of purple leagues, violet hippogriffs With wings of beating purple flew to me Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. Purpose What total purpose wrought such total doom; Purposive Malefic, purposive, with alien force Pursued Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source Pursuit The unknown color hostile in pursuit Put So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot 053.15 037.12 017.10 044.7 093.4 069.4 138.10 107.10 120.5 051.37 056.7 083.1 057.24 095.14 007.24 034.1 076.7 086.8 138.4 008.6 021.5 028.3 134.8 032.6 030.1 030.30 030.41 030.54 046.25 046.27 046.32 051.2 071.1 071.2 071.3 071.6 071.7 071.10 071.11 071.14 036.12 088.5 074.13 088.12 082.9 Q Quaffed This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Quarrels With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, Quarter Till a quarter of twelve, It’s a quarter of twelve, Queen see also Worm-Queen Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen And watched a queen of Saturn mourn Orion’s mad, metallic queen; I know not whether she was slave or queen; Queens The storied queens of old? Queer With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace They left me morsels, curious and queer, Her queer, ensorcelled eyes Quenchless Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. Quest And knowing that my quest at last must falter Upon a fruitless quest. Of those the days before the quest. Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her Questing I hear them when I am not even questing Quests Among the greater infinite he quests, Quick Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang Quickly They would not burn me quickly on their spit; Quicksilver Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone Quiet Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, We shivered in the quiet air, We left her far more quiet body lying there: The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why Quite Quite overscents the room, Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Her vestures; both were quite revealing. Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; I’m quite as good as ears to asses; Quiver Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, Quote And any Latin phrase can quote, Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, 129.1 128.37 143.2 143.10 006.18 008.9 030.11 030.22 099.11 041.10 025.9 087.11 127.1 018.12 036.15 036.32 049.16 086.4 113.7 131.11 014.5 081.5 103.5 076.7 031.13 035.5 035.7 044.7 058.11 066.5 081.14 147.8 096.27 096.64 096.67 128.36 135.9 137.8 018.7 137.6 138.11 R Race Rack Rack’s Radiance Radiant Rage Raiment Rain Raise Raised Ran Random Rang Rant Rapture Vampirish beings of a stellar race, The dark star’s necrophilic race. Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; I could not turn though fronted by the rack. Beyond the rack’s red searing agony Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, Radiant and ever-freshening, ever new, Of black and radiant night. Oh color of destruction, rage, and lust, She liked to don herself in raiment Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, As the mist and the rain; Like the sound of the sea or the rain, We listened to the strange rain On which the cool green rain gleams. Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; And so I slowly raise the shade to greet And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— That once ran red as blood There where I wandered, purple shadows ran Archibald Mimmih ran a neat Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, Random child The city rang with joyful call Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture A rapture in the night, In your eyes, there is rapture I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; 025.11 030.28 107.6 083.10 084.9 043.3 066.10 115.10 134.12 017.17 128.5 001.9 009.16 063.9 136.1 136.10 083.2 083.11 096.41 091.13 129.3 039.11 071.1 140.1 145.4 133.47 049.2 081.8 138.26 003.11 003.15 003.39 007.3 007.27 015.9 021.2 033.18 043.2 R Raptured Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, And crystal clear, of life and love and rapture, She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; With a sweet rapture of shame. All her dreaming, raptured face is white, Raptures Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, Remembered raptures haunting Rapturous We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy The rapturous music poured in lyric streams Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; Rare I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Whose rare Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, Rarely The primrose path she rarely took Rarest On the meads that are rarest, Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours Rasul And La Illaha illa Allah! M’hamed rasul Rat All it would find was a plump drowned rat Rat-Like And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. Rats And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! Rattling Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. Of some white form that made a rattling sound; Ravage And the heart holds its ravage, Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage Their ravage, if they had not come from you. Ravaging There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Ravel Where only courage of lost hope could ravel Ravished For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: Ravishing And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Raw There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed Ray Oh light that never shone for me one ray, 301 043.25 044.1 051.12 066.14 067.49 101.2 101.20 058.3 004.6 096.75 003.27 015.30 019.3 043.14 124.11 008.6 022.10 116.6 127.9 136.7 128.21 033.10 115.6 096.79 057.15 062.5 103.8 072.6 104.6 033.34 039.13 121.14 043.14 036.3 040.6 007.23 043.14 106.1 051.57 302 Reach Reached Read Real Reality Realm Realms Reap Reaped Reaper Reaping Reason Rebirth Recalling A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? To reach the haven I would never find. I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, To read the tale of star and sun, I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. And dreams become the real. The real world dreams, And found, the one reality is Death. And find, the one reality is Death. The deadly hardness of reality, He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, For ever mounting past the realm of light, All else is still the realm around, Amid a realm of sorcery, Saw only a realm of wet black sand Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, She rules a realm decayed from elder days, He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers From utmost regions of strange realms returning, From towers topless as the realms of sleep I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. His realms were vacua, he proved his vow Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, I love you for the realms of endless view, In ecstasy to reap For the grain that is reaped She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, I am sower, I am reaper, Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth For dawn’s rebirth. And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, Received Then ocean received the husks that we heaved Recesses Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses Reciting From the one reciting there. 085.2 085.12 011.9 011.22 091.11 014.18 036.36 112.7 129.8 109.19 109.20 102.13 102.15 120.11 024.1 024.9 053.17 055.3 057.8 057.14 057.22 127.17 014.2 025.4 034.4 036.43 069.3 070.10 099.4 107.10 113.5 116.11 054.37 123.8 128.31 133.33 119.8 003.22 007.34 044.4 051.43 109.8 124.11 006.6 048.21 110.1 136.6 R Recognition Of recognition, nor was I to stay Recurring And in recurring deaths escape them never. Red see also Blood-Red, Blue-Red, Rose-Red, Wine-red Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, Are black and gold and red, The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? The table is spread and the flagon red For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Lust, and the red, red wine! Lust, and the red, red wine! That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. Beneath twin moons of livid red. That once ran red as blood Red He was possessed with my red flame, Out of the window’s smouldering red The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head Are black and gold and red. Beyond the rack’s red searing agony Beyond the violet, within the red? Red roses in the overflowing wine. Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed And both my hands were covered with that red, And everything was red and strange and mad; Red phantoms in its bleeding mystery hid. Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, Red-Stained Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! Reeled Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, Reeling The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Reflections Her own reflections in a mirror. Refluence With refluence of flame Refluent Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Refrain A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. But found no other than the great refrain: Region Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought Regions Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, And fearful regions of a nameless fright, From utmost regions of strange realms returning, 303 122.4 087.14 003.23 012.13 012.48 017.1 022.5 022.7 023.4 023.8 030.32 030.36 039.11 046.17 046.21 055.5 056.11 057.7 067.13 084.9 088.2 097.8 101.11 105.14 106.1 106.9 106.10 106.14 136.7 098.3 007.34 101.29 128.12 109.30 043.3 007.32 014.19 013.11 006.14 025.8 036.43 304 Regret Regretful A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei He scans the regions lying all around, An empress regnant in an empty tomb— For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; For all things die, but they die most regretful For thee to reign. For you to reign. Reigned It reigned on its multiple thrones. Rejected Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. Rejoice And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; Relate To paint the things I never shall relate. Relations And philological relations, Release And never shall I find release, I know that death itself will never bring release; Relics The ruined relics of the ancient past, Reluctantly And hanging creepers that reluctantly Relume Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Remain Their secrets will remain untold While there remain but few—how few!—brief dusks Or remain by the willows Remaining No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining Remains These, these are gone, nothing of them remains The chewed remains of something used for bait; Nothing remains of her; her ancient bed No voice remains to tell me where she lies, Where nothing else remains. Remarkable Who burped a remarkable ditty, Remember Remember the days that will come of the breaking Remember the dust. As I remember, there were clanging gongs As I remember, there were flaming tongs As I remember, in my agony Remember phrases with a vague surprise Remembered Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks Remembered raptures haunting Remnants And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave Remote Remote, savage, Rent Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Repaid Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, Reign 069.5 127.18 040.5 051.15 012.6 067.6 057.20 087.8 066.2 025.14 137.14 004.79 013.30 102.6 011.11 043.3 030.51 031.7 033.27 124.6 051.8 087.6 099.3 099.9 109.39 145.2 005.3 005.6 080.1 080.5 080.9 120.3 006.19 039.16 096.75 090.6 033.36 091.7 049.26 R Replacing A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. Repose In endless repose; Resembled No hint of what it once resembled, save Resisted I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, Resounding In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? Rest Rest, with the cold ground resting Rest, with the dear things lying Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, It knew me not from all the rest, She will rest on the lawn; They dragged me back with never pause for rest. I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? And for the rest, she owed, and owed. Resting Rest, with the cold ground resting I hear them wide awake or part way resting, I am dust in cosmic outways resting, Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling Restoring Restoring all things lost and small things broken. Rests Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests Or rests where an ocean current laves Retreat The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Of daggers, fair appearances retreat Return You will return; You will return; Returning From utmost regions of strange realms returning, Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning Their elders have promised them a day of returning, The elder gods have promised a day of returning Returning humbly our own love whose force, Returns He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Reveal All things their form reveal, Reveal the symmetry that should be shown Revealing Her vestures; both were quite revealing. Revel Revel and welcome, games and play The harvest, and to revel deep Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, Revelers Of revelers turned statue, and no more Revelled Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? Reveller A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Each drunken reveller has long since gone; Revellers Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— 305 051.14 009.2 090.7 045.3 059.12 009.1 009.3 037.13 049.20 065.18 086.5 101.28 119.11 128.8 009.1 131.9 133.24 147.5 147.12 014.7 060.10 079.7 121.11 039.3 039.21 036.43 051.50 130.5 141.5 146.6 068.6 109.18 117.4 128.36 049.5 054.38 061.7 081.7 015.18 023.7 040.2 015.26 023.1 306 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Revelry From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, Revels When post-historic revels will unfetter them, When post-historic revels will unfetter them, Revolve And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; Reward What shall reward the delver’s toil Rhyme I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, Rhymes And it only rhymes with turtle...... Rhythm And perfect students, all in rhythm, Rib From the riddle of the rib Rich Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Though every hour were rich with a great store The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, Riddle Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. The guessless riddle of infinity. To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, From the riddle of the rib Riddled Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Riddles Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; Ride He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. Rides And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her Right Of right or wrong, They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, Rim The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, Ring Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Ringed Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, There, ringed with dark trees holy, Ringing He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. Riot Their festful riot in my rotting heap. Riotous For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses Riotously Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Ripe Poems ripe, red, rich, and rare, Rippling Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. Rise Fronds from out its temples rise; They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, I saw rise up a substance soft and white Rise in the pale starlight, Rise from half-decaying logs 015.41 080.11 130.6 141.6 130.14 141.14 038.11 135.12 138.12 135.11 138.27 133.39 069.6 096.76 096.95 115.5 116.6 136.7 006.20 014.26 014.33 014.35 036.30 133.39 120.6 094.11 069.14 113.7 133.69 138.5 066.9 051.58 051.59 069.1 011.10 065.17 069.14 054.41 101.23 097.3 136.7 060.3 111.4 047.22 084.7 095.13 109.14 126.7 R And rise Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. Risen Risen a spectre from the dead Rise I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, Rises Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; Rites Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: When time had ceased, when every world was riven, Riven I have riven all darkness to find thee. And through the riven air, there harshly swept River On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. Rivers The mountains and the rivers whisper: Death. River’s And past the winding river’s end you gaze, Roads The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Roar Where breakers and lonely waters roar, Then all the seas united with a roar Roasted Like a steak half roasted there. Robes My royal robes like a purple ghost Rockfall Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding Rock-Fall Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise Rocks Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, The rocks on a sunken shore. Rock-Strewn I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. Roll Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Rolled That presses on my grave and me, rolled It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, Roman The names of all the Roman towns; Romans Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, Romantic Romantic dreams, illusions, poetry, Rome As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Roof Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof Room Where the trees form a little dark room: How strange. How strangely empty is the room. And stood tremendous to my caverned room, Quite overscents the room, But from the sundered room I never crept— If in your head or heart, there were not room There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; Now wherefor do you make this larger room In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. Root I found my leg become a hellish root, Rooted The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. 307 127.4 127.5 130.12 141.12 046.19 131.13 043.33 066.2 006.16 036.37 043.5 105.10 131.4 102.11 147.4 096.94 060.13 094.9 136.8 046.27 089.4 059.7 020.1 060.11 011.9 036.22 124.10 054.22 073.2 137.4 138.12 120.13 003.33 011.7 065.10 077.14 089.10 096.27 105.13 116.4 118.1 118.9 131.12 082.11 091.10 308 Roots A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Secret the roots that enter the ground, Long are the roots that enter the soil Rose Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, Lily and poppy and rose are gone, Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; The rose and the violet bind her hair; The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, That stir the wakened rose; Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? The wreath, the garland, and the rose, Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, From having watched the dead rose petals strew From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. Rose-Pink Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Rose-Red Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, Roses The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; Where the fabled roses bloomed. Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Red roses in the overflowing wine. Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses Deeply the folded roses Roses’ Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom Rot While empty cities rot away Symbol of Armageddon, rot of rust, In dissolution’s rot. Around, Rote The authors’ names I know by rote, Rothenstein’s In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice Rotten Thy rotten breath And rotten in each swelling pore, And rotten to the very core, Your rotten breath And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave They left me also rotten corpses there And the miles of rotten bogs. Rottenness And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; All the rottenness, I dread; Rotting Their festful riot in my rotting heap. With only rotting corpses lying by, Round Wildly, wildly, round features mandragoral Round the bend, Rounded The sight of goblets cool and rounded, 038.1 038.9 004.35 004.57 007.6 009.7 015.14 015.22 019.6 023.6 024.11 041.6 043.31 049.24 057.22 068.3 094.4 092.5 027.6 040.1 047.31 097.1 097.8 101.11 109.5 096.26 010.11 017.19 054.20 137.5 129.6 012.8 054.49 054.50 067.8 090.6 103.11 126.8 029.6 054.12 054.41 103.7 068.4 133.49 128.2 R Rove Rows Over his loins his deep eyes rove. Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, The changing fancy and the careful rows Royal My royal robes like a purple ghost I was the sign of royal state, Rub And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, Rubble Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, I hear them in the rubble of defaced land Rubenstein Elizabeth Arden, Walska, and Rubenstein; Rubies Blue rubies won by stealth Blue rubies won by stealth I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above Ruby A ruby flares in the glistening sky, Swart talons toward the ruby turn, All night the blood-red ruby glares, Rue The acids would not matter, nor I rue Ruined Upon the ruined planet dwell The ruined relics of the ancient past, Ruinous Have perished in ruinous gardens fair In Paphian gardens lost and ruinous. Ruins Watch upon the ruins gleaming Rule Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule I rule the earth Ruled see also Shadow-Ruled Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; Where silence ruled yet something waited me There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne And it ruled alone. Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, She rules a realm decayed from elder days, Run The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— Running With formless terrors running through my mind? That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... Running wild Rush There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; The rush of waves that seek in vain Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed Rust Symbol of Armageddon, rot of rust, They saw Mercurial cities rust Rustle Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, Like the rustle of small 309 018.4 001.11 117.7 046.27 046.30 130.10 141.10 089.5 131.5 129.11 012.20 067.20 096.19 096.47 125.5 125.11 125.13 121.13 010.21 102.6 004.59 026.14 047.20 071.10 133.42 008.10 011.5 057.2 057.5 057.12 127.17 056.11 083.4 092.14 133.48 015.46 060.18 092.12 017.19 030.35 001.12 063.5 S Sabers The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers Sacrifice That you make these to that a sacrifice, Sacrosanct Heavy-lidded, somber-eyed, sacrosanct and sinful Sad Is whispered by the sad wind sighing A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, Our thoughts will be more sad than death is Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise To love’s sad paradise. And houris sad songs croon. Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! Why am I sad? Thus am I sad. Sad-Eyed That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. Sadness Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Safety Caught me with safety but a league away. Sage To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage Said She said she lacked experience; Saith The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? Saki This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Salt And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing Same Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Sanctity The intolerable sanctity of sin; And holy sin and sanctity were wed. Sand The cold apocalypse of sand. Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, The blood-red waving wastes of sand Saw only a realm of wet black sand My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. Alone protruded from the desert sand, But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Sands The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; You drift along the desert’s burning sands; Of dwarfs in deep Lethean sands; Sang Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. Sank The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, 073.13 118.13 006.9 004.62 021.3 039.4 059.7 096.42 096.60 098.5 123.1 123.5 138.4 015.35 044.4 086.2 014.33 128.38 134.1 134.7 134.13 134.19 129.1 020.11 036.41 096.64 007.10 007.36 010.20 036.22 055.11 057.8 085.10 093.4 134.2 007.46 012.21 017.6 067.21 081.4 011.18 S In the distance sank the coast in the dank Sappho As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; The songs that Sappho sung, The songs that Sappho sung Sat Where sat an even greater, stranger being, Satanic Most lovely, half satanic, half divine, Sate Of the mad matriarch who sate Satiation And I was more insatiate with satiation, Saturday “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” “Nine o’clock Saturday night, Mr. Forchamer.” Saturn And watched a queen of Saturn mourn Satyr Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping A form that clings to a satyr sings, Sauk And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Savage Remote, savage, A savage, indestructible enemy. The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, Save To any save themselves alone, He leered so vilely, Horror could not save I begged the gods to save me from such pain. No hint of what it once resembled, save Save one upon a dais standing tall, A beauty, save in soul and body, She hated all lies, save her own, Saw And in the waters saw my own face drown, But everywhere I looked, I saw it near, And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, And saw the space-invading star Thine eyes were stricken when they saw They saw Mercurial cities rust They saw the mighty Atthla fall I saw I still must fail. I saw the whispering knoll. Saw only a realm of wet black sand A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, And when I saw these titans, thereupon I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding And everywhere I looked, I saw it near, I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, I saw rise up a substance soft and white I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. Say While we say, You move: the unexpected things you say; 311 048.9 003.34 012.28 067.28 076.4 027.2 046.31 007.25 139.5 139.18 030.11 015.19 023.5 145.5 033.36 082.8 086.13 010.23 029.7 080.10 090.7 092.3 128.26 128.29 011.24 029.12 029.13 030.7 030.21 030.35 030.37 036.56 045.4 057.8 076.5 081.11 082.12 089.1 090.12 091.9 095.9 095.10 095.13 105.2 112.4 128.32 129.4 004.54 114.5 312 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Surely the loveliness that men say lies Say, sixty-five, not one day under, Says That says, These things shall be, and they are so: Scaled Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, Scandal And scandal, better if unfounded. Scans She scans the shadows of her land, He scans the regions lying all around, Scarce I scarce could know the evil that I did; Scarcely That scarcely passes soon Scarlet What evil source your awful scarlet flood? Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Of burning, baleful scarlet spun There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood Scars From all the hate of all those bitter scars. Scatter And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, Scattered Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, The scattered symbols of those closing pages The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Scent Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Scented The scented hair above thy brow, Tremble upon the scented air of night, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; Scholars Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, Scholastic With scholastic ladies, School School to teach seduction; The school was more than popular Score With eyes of golden fury; while a score Scorn THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: Ah Poet, scorn me not, Traveler: I scorn you, Death, Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not Scream I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, Scruples She had no scruples and no morals Scrutiny With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, Sculptors’ Throughout the sculptors’ workshop, uncomplete Sculpture That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... 119.3 138.32 122.6 075.13 128.4 055.9 069.5 106.11 096.57 017.2 017.11 055.14 106.3 024.8 134.22 001.11 036.35 040.1 062.9 063.11 096.35 004.19 015.10 101.2 138.11 140.6 140.2 140.5 081.6 012.7 012.17 012.26 012.43 012.44 067.7 067.17 067.26 067.43 067.44 088.8 105.9 128.39 036.5 092.2 092.14 S Scurries Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes Sea By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. There could not be so still a sea As deathless and old as the deathless sea, Like the sound of the sea or the rain, Toward the sea. By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. And all strange things once covered by the sea They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, Sea-Creatures Where the strange sea-creatures lurk. Sea-Friends Where sea-friends dwell, Sea-Grave In the dark sea-grave. Sea-Graves That hung on our deep sea-graves. Sea-Maidens The lonely, lovely sea-maidens call, Search For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong I further search with neither hope nor peace In search of something lost, but never near it; In search of closed escapes. Searched I searched the years that hold all things immortal A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry Searching My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. What nameless hunter searching for its meat? Searing Beyond the rack’s red searing agony Sears You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, Seas The dried-up seas, the deserts drear. With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, And wander in far lands and seas, alone, By seas that thunder vainly to the moon; Then all the seas united with a roar The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. Seas’ Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; Sea’s The sea’s eternal mystery, Sea-Slime A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, 313 063.1 012.30 014.30 015.41 020.12 048.11 057.17 063.9 066.16 067.30 071.14 095.3 130.15 134.2 141.15 047.41 060.22 047.5 048.16 020.6 013.31 024.3 036.60 037.4 045.16 036.17 089.6 036.31 072.8 079.3 084.9 017.7 010.19 020.7 025.3 031.4 094.9 094.12 094.3 020.10 057.3 314 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Sea-Tides Sea-tides ebb and flow; Sea-Tomb Of its cold sea-tomb. Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, Sea-Waves Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, Sea-Weary Awaited us, sea-weary all, Seaweed Seaweed fills deserted lanes; Seawind Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song.... Sea-Wind And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing Second And every prof, a second Firkins, Secret A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; The secret of eternal avatars. Secret the roots that enter the ground, Secret the winds that hollowly pass She will halt in a secret place Of secret worlds that have no name or place. Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Secrets The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper Abysmal secrets, monstrous mysteries, I know; Their secrets will remain untold Seduce They paid him to seduce ’em! Seduction School to teach seduction; See He walks where none can know or see, To see the Hylots of Calair, His sunken eyes could only see Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, There are no eyes to see, And when the talons loosened, I could see Around and see the comrades that are mine; Stretched farther than horizons. I could see Around, and see the comrades that I had; I love you for the beauty all can see, And through its darkened window see no sky: Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Can’t you see that I’d be able Seed Wherein no seed nor any fruit are left, Seeds The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. 047.7 057.10 094.6 057.22 049.6 047.23 049.22 049.28 020.11 138.29 003.10 036.4 038.1 038.2 065.9 070.8 127.2 003.11 006.11 013.22 030.51 140.12 140.2 014.9 030.14 046.11 050.10 053.11 079.11 087.10 093.2 103.10 116.13 118.2 124.12 135.8 031.6 025.6 112.3 119.8 S And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, see also All-Seeing A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” Seek That I seek. Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, Some thing I find not though I ever seek. To seek some image far behind some portal What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? The rush of waves that seek in vain And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; What goal, what new companion did I seek? To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. I vainly seek. Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; Seeker I am seeker, Seeking My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring Still seeking that which I had never found, Seeks He seeks to allay the old desire, Seem I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face I can not find, nor do I seem to place And footsteps seem to pass He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Seemed Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; My own the lineaments that seemed to be Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; Seeming Only fishes keep a seeming Seems Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly She seems And fair seems everything. You will become? It seems so strange to me Seen Lovely as any girl the world has seen, And of his face, there was no vestige seen, Have seen the blood-red plenilune. Have seen the fall of many kings, And of its face no vestige could be seen, Where none are seen: We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping Seeing 315 134.22 076.5 139.15 003.4 004.8 027.11 036.19 059.9 060.18 067.32 072.9 082.10 101.25 105.8 124.5 133.35 036.31 036.42 018.10 036.46 043.12 066.11 077.4 077.5 109.11 113.10 011.7 015.7 045.15 070.6 071.13 073.1 073.6 105.5 106.6 047.19 043.33 053.19 096.90 118.12 008.11 029.5 030.4 030.10 090.5 109.12 112.11 316 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, Sees He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. Seize Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? Seized Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. Self With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, I am wisdom of my own self blind, Self-Imposed Was self-imposed. Selfsame And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour Semigod His pagan pipes for semigod and maid; Send The elements their four-fold essence send you, Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Sense What sense of overhanging doom has made Senses Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, Sensuous But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, Sentient In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. A sentient entity from hell, alive. Sentinels Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, Separate In separate deaths, so long, Separation He wins the long awaited separation Sere Fields sere. The desolation tomblike, sere, Serise’s That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. Serpent’s And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head Set We turned and set forth once more, Set, fixed, immovable my head: Set, fixed, immovable my bed; Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed Setting see also Never-Setting Come back with setting suns And one by one with the setting sun Settle Shrieking, thus to settle whose Settling Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. Seven Antistrophes that seven before him knew, Sevenfold Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Sever There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Shade She will move through the moveless shade Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; And so I slowly raise the shade to greet Shades Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. 134.5 134.10 069.14 105.8 128.32 128.37 133.5 014.23 076.12 015.38 051.41 115.4 083.7 007.14 007.34 096.88 096.49 072.8 088.14 011.10 039.23 068.9 002.30 010.18 030.32 057.7 048.2 054.8 054.9 054.10 039.8 048.23 126.11 059.4 068.7 069.1 003.39 065.7 083.2 083.11 017.14 S And neither dawn nor darkness shades her clime. Shades The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Shadow The luminous shadow of the infinite, Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling Shadowed Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Emerging into light from shadowed fanes, Shadowland Into the shadowland I made my way Shadow-Patterned A leafy light and shadow-patterned heliation Shadow-Ruled In shadow-ruled dominions darkly fated Shadows Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept The shadows slipped from our side. She scans the shadows of her land, Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, There where I wandered, purple shadows ran And in a sea of purple shadows drowned. I saw great shadows across a gibbous moon; Shadowy The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: Shadowy growths and shadowy skies Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Her coral isles and shadowy pearls O Love, the world so shadowy and dim A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing Shake And voices shake the night Shaken Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken Shaking Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped Shall Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble 317 053.8 096.44 034.5 147.5 043.4 051.10 011.1 066.7 036.51 014.1 015.25 048.7 048.24 055.9 058.7 069.12 071.1 071.14 105.2 012.48 015.45 047.24 056.1 056.5 056.9 060.4 110.9 111.7 109.15 101.21 101.28 110.7 078.4 003.19 003.23 003.25 003.26 003.27 003.29 003.31 318 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever Shall lose all Beauty in the end, And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, We shall pass. And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips And I shall play And never shall I find release, Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep, To paint the things I never shall relate. Valerian! Thine eyes shall shut, Shall even as my lost days be foredone, Shall I wander in the hollows Where shall I find you? I will not find it till all things shall cease, Through them and over them—what shall be found What shall reward the delver’s toil Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? In whose oblivion we shall meet; But no voice shall speak again Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, Never more shall I hear sound This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. Love comes. I know that I shall never be That says, These things shall be, and they are so: Shalt Thou shalt die, So shalt thou thy beauty lend And thou shalt go; Thou shalt lie. After a while shalt go. Shambled Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave Shame You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, 003.33 003.35 003.37 003.39 004.11 004.43 004.48 004.73 004.75 004.79 006.7 013.14 014.21 014.24 014.27 014.31 025.14 030.53 031.12 033.25 033.40 036.58 038.3 038.11 043.20 043.32 046.46 047.33 050.10 051.36 051.58 054.16 082.2 083.8 097.5 108.3 113.9 122.6 004.1 004.12 004.15 004.24 004.42 029.3 090.3 017.7 S My Lust, and Fury, and crimson shame, With a sweet rapture of shame. Shameless By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed Shape Whose source could only, be some fearful shape There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; A giant shape part human, part despair, What shape of evil? What its foul intent? There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Shaped see Brain-Shaped Shapeless Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. Shapen A metal titan shapen like a cone, Shapes Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, Fantastic shapes and forms loomed everywhere Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee Shard With signs unreadable, on each the shard Shards Lie only shards of that dread doom Share Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, There will be none with you to help you share it, Where none could know or share. Shattered Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, She She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, So fair she is that beauty hath no graces She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases To worship where she goes. What words convey how closelier she follows For song, not she, doth gain. She walks with stately grace. She walks with dust and dreams. And she alone has beauty, grave and gray. She seems Stares with an eye she can not shun. She scans the shadows of her land, She has yielded to the kiss of night, She slumbers lightly here, She dreams of fear. Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds 319 046.22 101.20 101.8 078.11 087.5 089.11 091.2 106.3 106.13 084.8 076.6 045.14 061.11 092.1 095.7 074.7 010.15 116.7 118.3 134.6 036.22 003.9 003.18 003.30 007.7 019.2 019.7 041.1 041.7 041.8 041.9 041.16 053.1 053.16 053.18 053.19 055.4 055.9 058.1 058.2 058.4 060.1 060.8 060.12 320 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei She falls, She will go in the cold moonlight To her tryst she will go in the night, As the wind she will pass. She will move through the moveless shade She will halt in a secret place She will halt where the moonrays trace She will sink on the cold, cold ground, She will pillow her head She will rest on the lawn; She will dream as the night wanes slowly, Will watch while she waits on the stone; But she, in decadent fall, She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids She waits the coming of the golden guest; She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. No voice remains to tell me where she lies, I know not whether she was slave or queen; She had a lover for her wondrous grace; I only know she died in Mytilene. The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; She rules a realm decayed from elder days, She liked the texture of a lily, She liked to don herself in raiment She often made the first down payment, And for the rest, she owed, and owed. She loved no man, so she would boast, She loved alone and loved she most She loved to play a dangerous game That she had always invitations, For she paid half, when they went Dutch, The primrose path she rarely took Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; Forsaken often, she forsook She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— She hated all lies, save her own, She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, She said she lacked experience; She had no scruples and no morals This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! And she didn’t mind, 060.23 065.1 065.3 065.4 065.7 065.9 065.11 065.13 065.14 065.18 065.19 065.22 065.23 066.1 066.3 066.6 066.13 066.14 066.15 099.8 099.9 099.11 099.13 099.14 101.26 127.17 128.1 128.5 128.7 128.8 128.9 128.11 128.13 128.18 128.19 128.21 128.22 128.23 128.27 128.29 128.31 128.37 128.38 128.39 129.1 129.8 129.12 129.16 144.4 S Sheen 321 Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. 029.8 That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. 090.8 Sheer Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding 089.4 Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! 098.7 Shell Not always empty is a shell, 042.16 And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. 060.24 But all at once the shell of that cocoon 075.9 Shells There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied 095.5 Shere “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” 139.1 “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” 139.3 “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” 139.5 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 “But Miss Shere—” 139.17 Shifting A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: 015.45 Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, 060.1 Shimmering That almost hissed or the shimmering mist 048.15 Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, 096.86 Shimmering everywhere. 101.5 Shine Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay 051.59 Shines Out of the sky, a black star shines, 125.17 Shining And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow 075.5 Ships Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee 095.7 Shiver There touches his body lightly a shiver, 018.5 Is it the willows shiver and sigh? 056.10 That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? 101.12 Shivered We shivered in the quiet air, 035.5 Shivers Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes 001.1 Shoddy Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. 128.28 Shone And mistily shone the ghostly 045.13 Oh light that never shone for me one ray, 051.57 Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, 082.6 And light that never shone 109.27 When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: 112.2 047.21 Shore On the sunken shore. Before we had lost the shore. 048.4 The rocks on a sunken shore. 060.11 The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. 094.12 On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, 125.22 I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; 131.14 Shoreless And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. 014.30 Shores I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. 077.12 Short The days are short 002.8 Should Contains what a flagon always should! 022.6 Should love be told in brede or breve? 042.14 The days for which the heart should be most grateful 070.4 Whatever on the other side should lie, 083.12 To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. 087.12 322 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of creepers, and where head should be was growing Reveal the symmetry that should be shown And should a mouth as pleasureful as mine Shoulders Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, Nor lift a burden from my crumpled shoulders; Shouting Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. Show Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, Monotony of life an empty show? We left no mark to show her grave, Showed It was my own; my own face showed that hue, Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. Showing The door must open, showing why the hue Shown Reveal the symmetry that should be shown Shrieking And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Shrieking, thus to settle whose Shrill Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, Shrine All night I bowed before a burning shrine; The idol in my shrine of ebony, Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, And conceals like a curtain the shrine, So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, Shrink Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses Shroud And underneath the shroud of gloom Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Where night was like a shroud before an altar Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: Shrouded Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep Shrubs Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; Shrunken In constellations now to space-dust shrunken Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? Shuffling Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, Shun Stares with an eye she can not shun. Shut Valerian! Thine eyes shall shut, Sibilance A sibilance that followed as I stole Sick see also Love-Sick And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses And I am sick to death with utter weariness Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Valerian, thine eyes were sick For sick flames and the crawling dust, For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked 092.8 117.4 119.10 059.2 124.13 069.8 025.7 026.4 035.9 073.5 093.6 095.4 078.13 117.4 106.13 126.11 105.9 007.18 008.7 043.9 043.34 110.13 101.11 010.14 011.2 036.13 106.4 014.1 131.2 036.23 043.31 090.13 055.4 030.53 045.18 007.9 007.23 013.27 017.11 030.13 046.14 048.5 048.17 S Sicken Side Sides Sigh Sighed Sighing Sight Sightless Sights Sign Signs Silence Silences Silent Silver Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, And I am sick alike of passion and of glory, These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease The shadows slipped from our side. And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth But something from the dark side of the moon Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang Whatever on the other side should lie, And weird encrusted forms on every side. From dawn to dusk her white sides feel And they who merely lived are first to sigh: I can not even sigh Is it the willows shiver and sigh? Long-dead creatures murmur and sigh I only sighed to feel them play Is whispered by the sad wind sighing And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: What sight in later hours would haply greet Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? Encysted from the sight of other eyes; The sight of goblets cool and rounded, For him whose sightless eyes The leering of a huge and sightless eye. Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Of sights and sounds of outer space, I was the sign of royal state, I clap, and at the sign And of my presence, I could feel no sign With signs unreadable, on each the shard Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper Where silence ruled yet something waited me For silence unto silence died away. In silence absolute the lifeless land Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; The endless silence of the endless dead; Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. To a silent lute. Unbodied things hold silent sway Silent, still, old, dead; While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, And silver flutes Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. And silver flutes Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints Her laugh was like a silver bell. 323 054.29 070.5 096.4 104.9 096.65 048.24 051.43 075.12 081.5 083.12 095.8 060.17 051.18 054.6 056.10 125.7 054.30 004.62 020.11 073.12 079.6 083.8 119.2 128.2 014.28 083.14 124.12 030.26 046.30 096.21 122.3 074.7 006.11 011.5 080.14 093.1 094.13 099.6 122.10 131.12 004.67 010.10 054.58 061.5 012.36 028.8 067.36 076.13 128.33 324 Sin A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The intolerable sanctity of sin; And holy sin and sanctity were wed. Since The years of the past have long since flown, Each drunken reveller has long since gone; Since ten thousand years ago. Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond Of aimless life, of aimless death. Long since But punish, since their power I dared to test. To every branch. The tree had long since died, The years since Time began, the sum of thought, As your more supernatal beauty, since Sinful I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses Heavy-lidded, somber-eyed, sacrosanct and sinful Sing It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— May sing of her are vain; And the cicadas sing, Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Of man I sing. Singers The lips of the singers of Greece are still, Singing To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing And over all a choral singing. She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? Single A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden Single-ish And every error, he would single-ish! Singly Though singly impotent, might be in mass Sings But only an ancient, buried passion sings. A form that clings to a satyr sings, Sink She will sink on the cold, cold ground, And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan Sinuous And arms as sinuous as snakes, And twist their sinuous downward course— And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly Sips As one who of strange pleasure sips, Who can blame the mouth that sips For I give love like sips of precious wine Sisterhood Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; Sit Rejected. Nameless others near me sit. And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! They blandly sit upon their stools Six Six feet deep I lie; Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned 007.10 007.36 004.55 040.2 047.10 050.11 076.10 086.8 093.10 102.17 117.10 003.3 006.9 027.13 041.14 096.87 097.5 133.7 004.64 015.23 049.27 066.14 097.5 110.12 129.13 134.17 138.40 082.7 007.64 023.5 065.13 060.24 071.13 096.8 020.2 038.10 096.41 004.74 100.3 119.13 003.30 087.8 103.8 138.1 054.2 054.19 S 325 Corruption. Six feet deep 054.32 Six feet deep. 054.34 Sixty-Five Say, sixty-five, not one day under, 138.32 Skeins Skeins of fluctuant color, lit 034.6 Sketchbook’s Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, 006.10 Skies Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies 001.13 And the skies are lead, 002.6 ’Neath the lowering skies 002.22 For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies 013.31 And all the glory faded from the skies. 034.17 Shadowy growths and shadowy skies 047.24 That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. 060.5 Like a mist that fades into sodden skies 063.13 And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on 066.11 Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. 071.8 Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, 099.12 So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace 114.3 Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; 120.7 Burn beneath the stagnant skies, 126.4 When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, 130.7 When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, 141.7 Skirling With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, 034.7 Sky Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, 011.2 All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: 013.21 His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky 014.17 Of every age and every sky. 030.56 Her world and sky. 035.4 She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids 066.3 Across a velvet sky. And when I came. 071.4 When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? 085.4 That pierced the blackness of a starless sky 089.3 And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. 105.4 118.2 And through its darkened window see no sky: A ruby flares in the glistening sky, 125.5 Out of the sky, a black star shines, 125.17 Down the far closure of the valley, sky, 147.6 Skylanes And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. 034.9 Skyward The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, 086.10 Slain Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; 070.7 And I in all that solitude lie slain. 091.8 A slain man moans on a pointed stake 125.23 I am slayer, I am slain, 133.13 Slake With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, 019.1 Slaking Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking 003.19 When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking 005.1 Slashed The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers 073.13 Slaughtering 326 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. A slave of her passion, my passion, our ecstasy secret, malign; Life is the gift to a slave. Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; I know not whether she was slave or queen; Slaves Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: Slay To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay Slayer I am slayer, I am slain, Sleek Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang Sleep Sleep, with autumn sleeping, Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep For him whose mystic sleep Even as one who hath a quiet sleep, Her birth and sleep. The night that brings a sleep. And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Where its buried cities sleep For a long and mystic sleep I lie in my last sleep; And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. From towers topless as the realms of sleep It is not blessed sleep. It looms as hateful. For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, And in the fading vision of my sleep Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Or only sleep? Sleep the dim night away The worlds of sleep and waking, Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. Lethal waters sleep and swoon The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, Sleeper I am the sleeper Sleeping Sleeping beneath the grass; Sleep, with autumn sleeping, What forms were those that through the forest sleeping I have not found it sleeping or awaking. On the cities sleeping there Through the still, sleeping glade Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping Sleeps A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— Where he sleeps with the dead. Slave 105.11 003.10 004.38 006.18 029.6 099.11 096.22 086.7 133.13 081.5 009.5 009.7 014.2 014.22 031.13 035.12 036.64 044.4 047.4 047.35 054.33 060.24 069.3 070.1 070.9 095.12 098.8 101.30 109.7 109.17 111.4 126.1 130.3 130.10 130.19 141.3 141.10 141.19 064.2 004.44 009.5 015.17 036.57 047.9 065.5 113.8 119.4 023.7 065.16 S Sleepy Bring hashish, cannabis, or sleepy opium, Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Sleeve Nor always full the charming sleeve— Slender A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest Slender-Hipped Your body slender-hipped. Slept Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept Slides The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, Sliding Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding Slight Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Slime see also Sea-Slime All the slime and mould that slowly spread Slimy Only slimy creatures stare And the slimy things of the slimy dead Slipped The shadows slipped from our side. Slips A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— Slit They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. Although my flesh with many knives is slit. Slow The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; Of slow, fierce grief. And shining eyes bespoke caresses, slow Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace Slowly The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly All the slime and mould that slowly spread She will dream as the night wanes slowly, And slowly paces to an inner hall, Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Progressing slowly underneath the door And so I slowly raise the shade to greet The dark, walled city slowly came in view, Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, Grown faint, the winds drift slowly So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Where miasmal stenches slowly Slumbering In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Slumberous And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, Slumbers Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, Lost Atlantis slumbers deep, Lost Atlantis slumbers well 327 096.31 115.4 042.17 092.9 096.48 048.7 066.9 089.4 096.11 117.12 054.14 047.8 057.9 048.24 023.3 084.5 087.4 103.4 007.46 039.18 075.5 114.7 003.25 043.33 051.9 054.14 065.19 069.10 073.4 074.1 078.2 083.11 086.9 096.37 109.9 110.14 126.6 043.15 096.28 009.7 027.12 047.1 047.40 328 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei She slumbers lightly here, Slumbrous The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, Sly As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture Slyly At me and slyly chuckle while they keep Small Like the rustle of small There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; Things of small worth to me. Restoring all things lost and small things broken. Smaller What end smaller Smell And a smell of dandelions was Smile Yea, thy lips that softly smile, And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, But a smile has crossed her quiet face— Smiling While maidens lovely, smiling, fair, Smoky-Lidded The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. Smooth Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, Smote Of wave that smote against colossal wave. Smother Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. Smouldered All heaven smouldered in mysterious burning, Smouldering Out of the window’s smouldering red Snakes see also Water-Snakes And arms as sinuous as snakes, Snow In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; So So shalt thou thy beauty lend Thy body now so passionate And even so, Myrrhiline, So let us love, Myrrhiline, Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, Within the pool so fathomless and dark. And find that what I thought so great is but Then, on this paper now so blank and white, He leered so vilely, Horror could not save So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, And how my love that burns herein so deep The phantom that so greatly I desired So long, so far, so distant have you flown So endlessly, so wearily, you paced In separate deaths, so long, So long ago. So fair she is that beauty hath no graces Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? So little, yet to do so well, Is love so limited, pray tell? 058.2 015.2 015.11 054.40 063.5 087.5 096.18 147.12 133.63 136.11 004.16 029.13 058.11 049.11 096.38 125.21 094.10 070.14 034.10 055.5 020.2 131.6 004.12 004.21 004.47 004.71 006.17 007.37 011.20 016.3 025.5 029.7 029.10 031.11 036.53 037.1 037.5 039.23 039.24 041.1 042.3 042.9 042.10 042.15 S Is love so limited, pray tell? There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, There could not be so still a sea So few the days, so much that one could know, So little light, so many corridors, So dark whichever pathway one may go, So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, And so I soared on pinions of the night My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. With blood that had so curious a glow; So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird So, hesitantly, I put forth my foot My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? And so I slowly raise the shade to greet I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? They gave me back my eyes so I could peer So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear They left to me my eyes, so I could stare I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. O Love, the world so shadowy and dim Is it the glow so magically bringing So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace For, and the loveliness you watch so well. With you. and you so beautiful and fair. Differed so, each from each, and this one more You will become? It seems so strange to me What they appeared. But there are some so blind Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet That says, These things shall be, and they are so: So deeply dark and fair She loved no man, so she would boast, So long as there was never danger; So dig and delve, Soared And so I soared on pinions of the night Soaring Where soaring pinions Beyond the soaring clouds’ infinity; Sob I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Sociable “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” Sod I am sod, Sodden Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies Like a mist that fades into sodden skies 329 042.19 043.14 044.7 048.11 050.1 050.2 050.3 050.4 071.9 075.1 077.8 078.12 079.4 082.9 083.6 083.11 085.2 087.9 090.10 096.73 103.9 110.6 110.9 110.11 110.13 110.14 110.16 111.9 114.3 114.12 114.14 115.7 118.12 121.5 121.9 122.6 127.6 128.9 128.14 143.9 071.9 034.12 037.10 096.23 139.11 133.15 001.13 063.13 330 Soever Soft A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. In the soft, first capture. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; I saw rise up a substance soft and white Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. Softer By softer gold than gold. Softly Yea, thy lips that softly smile, The listening ear; its tones are softly heard And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. Till softly falls away Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Soft-Pressed Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed Soil Long are the roots that enter the soil Solemn Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop And in their solemn state, We buried her in the solemn fall Time has tolled a solemn knell, Trees solemn and soundless and tall And in their solemn state From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. Solid Around me, solid walls of no escape, Solitude And I in all that solitude lie slain. Solution Wherefor, solution distant as a star, Solve To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage Somber-Eyed Heavy-lidded, somber-eyed, sacrosanct and sinful Some Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure My mind with longings for some ancient thing, Some thing I find not though I ever seek. And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, To seek some image far behind some portal 041.13 004.73 012.48 025.12 033.20 044.5 051.46 054.24 075.1 076.7 082.2 095.13 096.89 096.95 101.11 101.19 110.14 114.6 115.14 032.4 004.16 028.6 066.2 072.8 096.81 129.10 092.12 038.9 006.17 011.12 012.14 035.1 047.39 065.21 067.14 094.4 078.9 091.8 050.7 014.33 006.9 006.3 027.10 027.11 028.13 036.19 S 331 You will come back some day, lost lover, Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. Whose source could only, be some fearful shape Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! Of some white form that made a rattling sound; At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream, The air from some vast stellar carnage bled What they appeared. But there are some so blind And paid for all, on some occasions. Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? 039.19 045.10 059.10 070.2 071.13 072.6 072.13 074.8 078.11 083.2 083.9 104.6 105.12 106.12 121.5 128.20 147.7 Was someone here? Something Where silence ruled yet something waited me In search of something lost, but never near it; And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And into more than light, to something wholly The mouth where something dark was trickling through. But something from the dark side of the moon The chewed remains of something used for bait; I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses Sometimes Sometimes her gleaming eyes Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; Somewhere From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, Somewhere past Ispahan. Song Even as Song and Life and Love, Youth and Song and Joy; And the song of Beauty for ever dying A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, 058.12 Someone 011.5 037.4 044.3 051.11 073.8 075.12 087.6 092.11 101.23 060.6 060.8 060.12 128.22 096.91 096.102 004.2 004.30 004.61 007.32 007.44 013.2 015.4 015.14 015.31 015.33 021.1 332 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei A golden throat, a golden song that fail— Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; For song, not she, doth gain. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song.... Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, Its voice in one vast song To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, Or know the song His life, his love, his song; Songs The songs that Sappho sung, For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, Made mad songs and patterns of, The songs that Sappho sung From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. And houris sad songs croon. Strange songs filled the air Song’s Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. Soon That love and passion weary all too soon. By fumbling fingers, and forgotten soon, Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— That scarcely passes soon Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon Soon-to-be-Forgotten The soon-to-be-forgotten future days. Soothe To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. Sorcerers Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells Sorceress-Eyes Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, Sorcerous A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: Sorcery Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; Amid a realm of sorcery, Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, Of human form or beast, weird sorcery A music-maker, lord of sorcery. Sore My corpse was once a festering sore Sorrow Let us forget vain sorrow and tears All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, 021.7 022.4 022.8 022.12 040.5 041.16 049.22 049.28 067.56 096.92 109.34 110.12 111.11 133.71 134.21 012.28 028.11 046.35 067.28 080.4 096.60 136.5 028.8 007.16 031.2 067.56 096.57 097.5 098.1 105.7 102.8 020.4 080.7 006.22 101.22 006.8 036.54 055.3 061.9 093.7 113.12 054.48 004.53 096.70 134.7 S Sorrowing Sorrowing and sorrowing for lost days golden, Sorry I am not sorry to have been your lover, Soughs While over us the wind at twilight soughs, Sought All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought He sought the infinite in life, but now For him who sought the mystery, I sought it in far lands of timeless travel I sought, but sought in vain. And end, there too I sought. I sought my spirit’s goal. I sought beyond no more. I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem I sought in maze of sorcery and bale; Soul Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Soul? Dead. In all this hideous land the only soul. Delirium over my shaken soul now passes, A beauty, save in soul and body, But once, for every soul in mosque, at sea, on sand Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden Soul’s My soul’s death-knell. Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. Sound The sound of perished lutes There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness And every sound a thing of lyric joy. A phantom of a kingdom of no sound. Never more shall I hear sound And a rat-like sound of pitter and patter. Like the sound of the sea or the rain, The sound of ancient lutes Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. I heard a sound of cosmic revelry, I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Of some white form that made a rattling sound; There was a sound, gigantically loud, So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Felt deeper silence broken by no sound, Instead, they sound like Major Hooples Sounded Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. Sounding With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, 333 006.5 120.9 147.3 007.2 007.3 007.27 013.9 014.4 014.25 036.1 036.8 036.16 036.24 036.40 036.46 036.54 043.16 043.25 054.67 085.6 101.21 128.26 134.2 134.17 013.16 067.49 120.8 012.35 015.33 028.4 053.20 054.16 062.5 063.9 067.35 072.6 080.11 088.8 104.6 106.5 110.14 122.10 138.3 082.4 020.7 334 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. Soundless And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. Trees solemn and soundless and tall Sounds Of sights and sounds of outer space, My loved one made soft cooing sounds, and so The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. Sucking sounds invade the night, Source What evil source your awful scarlet flood? When he finds their source? Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source Whose source could only, be some fearful shape Whence came that unknown color? Was its source Only do we who knew you feel the source, And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? Sow Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. Sower I am sower, I am reaper, Sown The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, Space All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long Of sights and sounds of outer space, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Or space; Where all things are, yet are not; time and space That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing Oh little creature, lost in time and space, Upon all things of life and time and space; We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. I am atom lost in space, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Space-Dust In constellations now to space-dust shrunken Space-Invading And saw the space-invading star Spaces And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, The vacant spaces of the weary night; From the sweep of vast spaces Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces Space’s Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered 060.24 011.6 065.21 030.26 075.1 105.11 126.9 017.2 038.12 074.13 078.11 088.1 146.8 147.9 119.8 133.33 025.6 043.26 128.31 013.21 024.6 030.26 037.2 053.4 070.11 076.8 077.1 107.2 112.3 112.11 113.14 130.16 133.52 141.16 036.23 030.7 007.49 007.50 033.13 034.2 036.39 111.1 036.11 S Span Long crumbled in primordial pre-time’s span; And when I crossed the imperial weaving span But when my span Spawn Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? Spawning Still farther back before the stars were spawning We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. Speak Of golden voices that will never speak; But no voice shall speak again Of golden voices that again will speak; As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... Species To forty thousand species, Woman Specter Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Specters Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered Spectral Within those precincts of the spectral night’s Of all my spectral lands, Only spectral lilies grow But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss Spectre Risen a spectre from the dead Speeds Or speeds Spell Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Malignant, as if guarded by a spell, Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, You caught me, bound me, with a spell, Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, The tolling came like measures for a spell. The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem Spell-Bound But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs Spelled All the least lines that spelled Spells That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true Spent I struggled onward though my strength was spent Spew They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, Spheres The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing Spied There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied Spin The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, Spinning The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Spins I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, 335 036.20 071.5 133.59 017.12 036.27 112.3 012.34 047.33 067.34 072.13 075.10 084.11 104.13 140.9 017.11 045.19 011.15 012.19 047.30 056.7 046.19 060.14 006.7 024.12 027.3 042.4 043.27 045.6 094.8 101.18 113.10 125.15 132.5 080.6 113.8 091.3 130.15 141.15 036.28 110.12 111.7 095.5 036.28 116.6 096.23 336 Spiral Spires Spirit A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, I have wandered in spirit, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown I could not move though mind and spirit broke. Spirits For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! Spirit’s I sought my spirit’s goal. Spit There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; They would not burn me quickly on their spit; Spits With torture on their burning spits. Splaying Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall Spleen Hatred and spleen. Splendid She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. Splendor Like a flame, like a splendor supernal, Of the splendor known no more, Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: Splendors To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, Splendour For splendour unknown. To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, There is magic, there is splendor Splintered Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, Spoiling And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. Spoken That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Your polished phrases spoken carefully, Spontaneous Spontaneous as yours, Spot Of the woods to a spot forlorn, Sprang The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang Spread The table is spread and the flagon red All the slime and mould that slowly spread When I felt through me spread the germ Body? Spread. For ever spread. Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair Spreading Increasing, spreading more and ever more And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; 092.10 086.10 033.2 037.2 043.2 051.26 051.47 068.10 072.14 022.11 036.24 087.5 103.5 030.48 092.7 046.16 003.9 051.35 043.21 047.18 051.54 111.6 119.6 004.63 026.10 033.17 082.6 054.25 103.14 120.4 121.2 052.6 065.6 073.13 081.5 022.5 054.14 054.26 054.65 054.66 134.5 078.6 106.2 S Spring Springing Oh, spring is gone Oh, spring is gone For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? There will spring no laughter I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, Where the asphodels are springing? Springs Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— The trees, the birds, the fleeting springs, the years, For the springs that are gone. I am all life that springs anew, Spring-Sweet And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, Springtide Springtide waning, Beauty sweet, Sprites And sprites invisible attend the meeting, Spun Of burning, baleful scarlet spun It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, And burning eyes along each limb. It spun In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, Spurning For surely none would think of spurning Squares Then at the top I stood on magic squares Squirm And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, Stage For he has passed from stage to stage, Stagnant Burn beneath the stagnant skies, Stain You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. Stained see also Red-Stained For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Stained is the coffin floor My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Stains That still preserve dark ancient stains Stairs Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Stake A slain man moans on a pointed stake Stale Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, Stalk And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, Stalking Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, Stand There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Standing Save one upon a dais standing tall, Star Like a perishing star, Of star and sun. A lonely traveler on another star; To read the tale of star and sun, And saw the space-invading star A star they knew before it came. To the star that is fairest; 337 002.1 002.31 015.34 052.5 131.13 033.26 051.26 102.10 123.4 133.31 044.3 100.6 051.38 055.14 073.2 091.12 125.9 138.37 074.5 054.25 057.14 014.32 126.4 017.16 040.7 054.46 096.76 010.3 074.1 125.23 057.22 061.11 105.5 129.5 129.10 092.3 001.8 013.20 014.11 014.18 030.7 030.44 033.12 338 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Wherefor, solution distant as a star, As a cindering star, Out of the sky, a black star shines, A star Only slimy creatures stare Meets the mysterious woman’s stare Out of a dusky corner came the stare And stare and stare in horror as I meet They left to me my eyes, so I could stare And from a dusky corner came the stare It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, Stares with an eye she can not shun. Or starfire care We left her staring at the musty pall, My dreaming eyes kept searching, seeking, staring Her timeless vision staring still And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, That pierced the blackness of a starless sky More ghostly than the faint starlight. Rise in the pale starlight, That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred 050.7 063.8 125.17 127.19 047.8 055.15 072.5 083.13 103.9 104.5 073.9 073.11 085.5 055.4 133.68 035.3 036.31 055.19 074.11 089.3 010.8 109.14 074.6 Along starroads with only moonglow paven In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, They gazed on stars that now are dust, And the old stars are sunken Athwart the circling citadel of stars, Still farther back before the stars were spawning Still farther where not even stars were flaring I have sundered the stars away; As the stars are, my love is eternal. And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. Of all the stars and all the universe, I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; Star’s The dark star’s necrophilic race. Starved Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll State And in their solemn state, I was the sign of royal state, 037.6 013.9 013.18 024.1 030.33 033.23 036.2 036.27 036.29 043.6 043.23 056.8 102.19 110.6 111.1 Stare Stared Stares Starfire Staring Stark Starless Starlight Starred Starroads Stars 111.5 112.1 112.6 030.28 069.7 085.3 012.14 046.30 S And in their solemn state Emily Post, and thieves in state; Stately She walks with stately grace. Statue Of revelers turned statue, and no more Stay All past and future. Traveler, stay! Of recognition, nor was I to stay Stayed My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? Steadfastness And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? Steadily And steadily grew strange and stranger. Steak Like a steak half roasted there. Stealing Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, Stealth Blue rubies won by stealth Blue rubies won by stealth Stealthy I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. Steaming Enwrapped it in a steaming blood-red shroud: Steed And when my steed permitted me to light, Stellar My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze Vampirish beings of a stellar race, With visions of the stellar pits, The air from some vast stellar carnage bled Beyond the black beyond the stellar maze. Stems Deep stems twining around the mandrake, I know all Latin stems and nouns, Stenches Where miasmal stenches slowly Step Her step is lighter than the summer breezes An unseen step on the creeping moss— Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying And every forward step a weary strain. I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. Stepped Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped Steps With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, In your steps on the wakened ways of earth With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; With weary steps to the old, original end. Stifling And stifling tropic heat; Still The lips of the singers of Greece are still, And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, That still preserve dark ancient stains For all is dead, and all is still, I peered amid those waters black and still. And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling And still to flushed and heated faces burning, Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. We only left her body lying still and deep; And farther still when life was yet to come, Still farther back before the stars were spawning 339 067.14 142.5 053.1 081.7 067.50 122.4 083.6 147.9 128.16 136.8 051.61 012.20 067.20 092.11 106.4 071.12 013.19 025.11 030.46 106.12 127.20 038.5 137.3 126.6 041.5 056.3 085.11 091.4 092.11 078.4 001.2 051.45 063.2 101.6 112.12 048.10 004.64 007.27 010.3 010.13 011.21 015.7 015.29 025.12 035.10 036.26 036.27 340 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Still farther where not even stars were flaring I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; Still seeking that which I had never found, I saw I still must fail. And still for this one dream all else forsaking Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, There could not be so still a sea But still assail the deeper firmament. All else is still the realm around, Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; Silent, still, old, dead; Her timeless vision staring still Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Cover the form whose hand still gropes. Through the still, sleeping glade I still have far to go, it’s late. Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. And still it followed, still I heard it gain But all the strange and withered things still hung But ennui still is mine. Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; To all the world; and dearer still are those A counterpart of what is still to be? I merely listened, as I listen still, I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Still live a hundred years ago, Stilled However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, Still-Eluding The still-eluding dream. Stir Out of oblivion, no voice will stir That stir the wakened rose; There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Her eyelids vaguely stir; Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, Stirless In the stirless dust; Stirred As if a wind had musically stirred Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, That clove through midnight where no other stirred, Stirs As it stirs the dust So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Stoked While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked Stole A sibilance that followed as I stole 036.29 036.36 036.42 036.56 036.59 037.13 041.13 048.11 050.14 053.17 054.29 054.58 055.19 062.4 062.10 065.5 067.52 071.10 074.11 078.8 091.5 093.11 096.24 096.86 101.7 101.17 105.1 105.6 117.5 118.10 122.7 124.8 138.17 134.14 036.48 026.9 041.6 044.2 058.6 113.6 009.20 028.7 054.28 079.5 002.23 110.14 048.17 045.18 S Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, Sunken walls of crumbling stone Will watch while she waits on the stone; Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; Stone-Pick In his hand a stone-pick; in his mummied eyes Stood He stood at last before the citadel When Atlantis stood alone Then at the top I stood on magic squares Curled inward, flowerwise. I stood before Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, And stood tremendous to my caverned room, Stood out, half-open pods showed mystery That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; Stools They blandly sit upon their stools Stopped It rolled, and spun, and stopped in front of me, Store As if there never were an end in store. Though every hour were rich with a great store Stores Such dazzling stores of useless learning! Storied The storied queens of old? Storm I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Story Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, Strain And every forward step a weary strain. Strange I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful caresses The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, As one who of strange pleasure sips, Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, And baleful boles of strange misshapen growths Strange wondrous jewels and diadems The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, From utmost regions of strange realms returning, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Strange was the night, and stranger Where the strange sea-creatures lurk. Strange witch-lights flare, Strange wondrous jewels and diadems Stone 341 085.7 047.11 065.22 069.1 090.13 131.14 059.5 024.10 047.13 074.5 081.3 081.10 089.10 093.6 106.6 138.1 073.2 078.7 115.5 138.38 041.10 133.23 096.5 091.4 003.3 003.11 003.31 004.6 004.74 006.3 007.31 011.3 012.24 013.18 014.33 015.5 015.12 020.9 025.7 036.43 044.4 045.5 047.41 061.6 067.24 342 Strangely A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei As dreaded as some strange disease’s pain, The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead How strange. How strangely empty is the room. But all the strange and withered things still hung And all strange things once covered by the sea Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon And everything was red and strange and mad; Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. Phantasmal realms of faëry, strange and new, You will become? It seems so strange to me I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; And steadily grew strange and stranger. We listened to the strange rain Strange songs filled the air We listened to these strange tall dreams The pedants utter strange conceits Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; How strange. How strangely empty is the room. Strangeness Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; Stranger The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; Strange was the night, and stranger Where sat an even greater, stranger being, Stranger than ever came And steadily grew strange and stranger. Stray Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found Stream And haunting as some fabulous lost stream, Who follows an endless stream I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; Streamed That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. Streamers The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers Streams Of Acherontic streams; The rapturous music poured in lyric streams That streams from her glowing body bare Of Acherontic streams; By bathing me in streams of molten lead. Streets In the streets now covered deep, As we strode the streets of Tyre As we strode down the streets of Tyre. Deserted city streets, and fog, and lantern glow. Strength I struggled onward though my strength was spent Strengthening Tremendous fingers, growing, strengthening, 070.2 075.3 077.14 093.11 095.3 105.7 106.10 111.5 111.9 112.4 113.5 118.12 124.5 128.16 136.1 136.5 136.9 138.9 051.55 073.1 077.14 129.7 013.18 045.5 076.4 109.31 128.16 072.3 028.13 064.3 101.27 076.14 034.1 012.4 015.30 060.20 067.4 084.4 047.34 049.1 049.7 131.8 091.3 074.12 S Stretched Stretched farther than horizons. I could see Strew From having watched the dead rose petals strew Strewn see Rock-Strewn Stricken Thine eyes were stricken when they saw From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Stride The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. Striding Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Strip She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, Strips So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, Strive Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, Striving And years of striving in one moment ended. Strode Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long As we strode the streets of Tyre As we strode down the streets of Tyre. As we, triumphant, strode along, Stroke Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Stroked I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. Strong Abyssal pilgrimage undaunted, strong Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— You proved illusion not more strong than oaken Strongly My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? Strove He strove to bring a light. To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? Strown From flowers strown upon the ground Struggled Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying I struggled onward though my strength was spent Struggling And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour Students And to the students in my classes, When I can make my students Cram. I offer to my students gratis, And perfect students, all in rhythm, Stumble Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, Stumbled I stumbled onward, knowing I must fail, Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Because she sometimes fell or stumbled; Substance The substance of it in the long ago. I saw rise up a substance soft and white Substances All substances and creatures from the bond All substances and dreams, all sorrow, all delight, Subtle The subtle pleasure that you give to me, 343 093.2 068.3 030.21 048.1 091.10 092.6 003.9 029.10 088.11 051.7 024.6 049.1 049.7 049.19 072.11 104.11 075.2 024.7 037.13 079.2 120.5 083.6 014.3 015.20 049.10 085.11 091.3 076.12 137.7 137.10 137.16 138.27 124.2 085.13 091.6 128.22 075.8 095.13 076.9 096.70 114.10 344 Such A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei DEATH: I offer thee such dreams Is such as gods impart What total purpose wrought such total doom; Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? On which such sunfire beat. Death: I offer you such dreams I begged the gods to save me from such pain. Such a treasure? I’d be missing Her latest lover’s love was such I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Such dazzling stores of useless learning! There was a young man—such a pity!— Such-Like And other such-like things as that is Sucking Sucking sounds invade the night, Sudden Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. Sufferings To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. Suffices For nothing suffices Sullen And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; Sum The sum of all man knows, the sum of all The years since Time began, the sum of thought, The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum Summer And summer is fled, Of summer flown. And summer is fled, Her step is lighter than the summer breezes And Psyche hover on the summer air. To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon The summer blooms. In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; Summit Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; Summoned Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers Sun Of star and sun. To read the tale of star and sun, Beyond the age of any sun; And hath no waking to no dawn nor sun. Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept And one by one with the setting sun The sun lay warm along our way, The sun lay warm along our way. Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. Of arabesques the blood-red sun, Her face has watched the dying sun. 012.1 032.7 036.12 043.16 048.12 067.1 080.10 100.4 128.17 135.12 138.38 145.1 137.15 126.9 117.14 087.12 033.37 062.6 071.8 105.6 102.16 102.17 102.18 002.2 002.24 002.32 041.5 051.37 051.51 096.85 101.10 131.6 131.2 034.4 013.20 014.18 030.50 031.14 048.7 048.23 049.8 049.14 053.10 055.2 055.8 S Sundered The crimson, never-setting sun, Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. Beyond the lifetime of the sun. The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered I have sundered the stars away; But from the sundered room I never crept— Sunfire On which such sunfire beat. Sung The songs that Sappho sung, The songs that Sappho sung Sunk Sunk beneath the washing wave; Sunken And the old stars are sunken In continents and islands that are sunken, His sunken eyes could only see Sunken walls of crumbling stone On the sunken shore. The rocks on a sunken shore. From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. Mysterious as her sunken palace is, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, Sunless That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. Sunlight Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song. Sunlight and seawind, laughter, song.... In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. I am sunlight on the hill, Sunlit For sunlit earth: Suns And the suns eternal, Come back with setting suns And back; and purple suns flamed northerly We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; Sun’s The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning Superficial Its superficial vesture whose arrays Supernal Of a dream supernal. Like a flame, like a splendor supernal, And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. Fire, supernal. We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: Supernatal With supernatal art. As your more supernatal beauty, since 345 055.10 055.16 055.20 085.5 036.9 043.6 105.13 048.12 012.28 067.28 047.2 033.23 036.21 046.11 047.11 047.21 060.11 094.4 127.12 130.15 141.15 060.5 049.22 049.28 051.35 133.20 109.4 033.14 039.8 071.3 112.6 066.9 112.1 117.3 033.16 043.21 044.3 051.56 066.12 112.13 032.8 117.10 346 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Supplemented Her gestures supplemented well Supreme And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. Supremer Than which no love can have supremer worth. Surcease I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; Surely Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping Surely the loveliness that men say lies He surely was a classic beauty.” For surely none would think of spurning Surfeit And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging Surge And surge of falling flame of far dominions, The waters mounted in one surge whose swell Surged A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry Surging I heard alone the surging tides in motion. Surprise Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise Remember phrases with a vague surprise Sustaining And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, Swallowed By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. Swamps Lighting swamps and tarns unholy Swarm Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. Swart Tumescent orchids swart with hair. The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, Swart talons toward the ruby turn, Swathes In swathes of softly searching sentient hair. Swathings Specter, in swathings of sick scarlet clad, Sway Unbodied things hold silent sway Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. Swayed Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, Swaying And body to body, drunken forms were swaying Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, Sweep From the sweep of vast spaces Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Tides around Atlantis sweep, Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Sweet see also Spring-Sweet I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, 128.35 008.13 112.16 051.49 096.20 051.36 119.1 119.3 137.28 138.37 097.7 034.8 094.5 089.6 094.14 059.7 120.3 124.4 012.30 067.30 099.8 126.5 092.10 030.16 074.10 125.11 072.8 017.11 010.10 071.11 003.22 011.10 015.39 096.37 033.13 043.16 047.32 125.1 003.29 007.22 008.2 S Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing A lyric ecstasy, a sad, sweet note, Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. I am the sweet close winding-sheet Oh sweet beloved and enchanted lover— Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know Springtide waning, Beauty sweet, The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; With a sweet rapture of shame. Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet And the fallen sweet clover, And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, Sweeter Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Sweetest A choral hymn of mad and sweetest pain, Swell The waters mounted in one surge whose swell From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, Swelling And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling And rotten in each swelling pore, Swept Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. And of that thing swept over me a fear And through the riven air, there harshly swept Swiftly That swiftly toward me now began to fall, Swim Fishes swim and monsters creep Swimming Swimming through Atlantis doomed; Swoon Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon Lethal waters sleep and swoon Swooning And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses Swoons Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Till beauty into perfect beauty swoons; Swoops How it wildly swoops Swords Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, Syllable That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy Syllables Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, Symbol The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. 347 012.51 015.4 020.11 021.3 028.3 028.8 046.45 051.27 051.59 096.34 099.5 100.6 101.7 101.20 102.3 119.4 121.4 121.9 123.9 124.3 128.37 041.3 115.8 007.30 094.5 096.91 015.13 054.49 078.8 090.9 105.10 088.13 047.3 047.28 007.14 015.44 096.88 101.3 126.1 007.23 018.2 051.53 002.14 082.6 028.5 041.13 017.8 348 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Symbol of Armageddon, rot of rust, Symbol of beauty, love, and life, and healing, Symbols The scattered symbols of those closing pages All things are symbols of eternal death— We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, Symmetry Reveal the symmetry that should be shown Systems With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping 017.19 051.62 036.35 102.5 112.7 117.4 036.5 112.9 T Table Take The table is spread and the flagon red That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! And incubi avidly waiting to take O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, And take the caravan Take, or the taking never will be thine; They know that it will take me years to die, If I never take you anywhere again; I take the bridgeway you already know. Taken From the way I have taken In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; Taker I am my own final taker, Taking When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, Take, or the taking never will be thine; Tale The tale is told of years of long ago. For none are left the tale to tell. To read the tale of star and sun, The world of which no tale is handed down. Oh little creature, here’s a tale of doom.... Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. Talk And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. Talked Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. Talking I hear them when no human voice is talking “What are you talking about?” Tall Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Trees solemn and soundless and tall Save one upon a dais standing tall, Tall candles there were dreaming We listened to these strange tall dreams Over all the tall wet grass. Talon Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Taloned And taloned shapes of evil stalk, for one night free, The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, Talons With flapping tatters and long talons lean. For in the talons I was fast immured. And when the talons loosened, I could see With flapping tatters and long talons lean. Swart talons toward the ruby turn, Tame All colours else were wan and tame, 022.5 025.4 038.7 096.34 096.99 097.6 103.3 135.3 147.14 033.11 043.13 101.26 133.11 005.5 097.6 007.48 010.24 014.18 068.14 077.13 111.12 077.11 077.12 081.4 131.3 139.6 011.2 065.21 092.3 136.3 136.9 136.12 072.11 104.11 061.11 091.11 029.4 079.8 079.11 090.4 125.11 046.23 350 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Tapped Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, Tarns By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— Lighting swamps and tarns unholy Task Our task was done. Tatters With flapping tatters and long talons lean. With flapping tatters and long talons lean. Taught For you have taught a thousand things to me, Teach I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, School to teach seduction; Tears Let us forget vain sorrow and tears Their flame and their tears; Tedious The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; Teems Till Nature teems Tell Can escape to tell of muted grief. For none are left the tale to tell. I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? Is love so limited, pray tell? No voice to tell of days that were, No voice remains to tell me where she lies, These things I love, yet words can never tell Telling I am telling you goodbye, dear, Tells Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. Tempest Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Temples Fronds from out its temples rise; Ten Since ten thousand years ago. Tender In your lips that were tender Oh love compassionate and strangely tender, Of lips too tender; your precise array. Tendrils The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, Tense For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Tentacle One fleshy tentacle, raised me beside Tentacles A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest Terms Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, Terrible She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Thy terrible lust, Terrific And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Terror The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, 145.4 036.50 056.11 126.5 035.8 029.4 090.4 120.10 003.29 140.2 004.53 009.22 013.2 109.24 006.12 010.24 013.14 026.10 039.16 042.3 042.9 042.15 042.19 053.12 099.9 114.9 135.1 111.12 063.11 047.22 047.10 033.19 051.55 114.8 011.18 074.3 091.13 092.9 102.3 003.9 003.38 005.2 013.23 007.28 044.5 088.10 101.16 T Terrors Test Texture Than That Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere, With formless terrors running through my mind? But punish, since their power I dared to test. She liked the texture of a lily, Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, More ghostly than the faint starlight. More fabulous than all the gems of fame, But found no other than the great refrain: By softer gold than gold. Purer than earthly creatures’, Our thoughts will be more sad than death is Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Her step is lighter than the summer breezes There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept And into more than light, to something wholly Than which no love can have supremer worth. More fabulous than all the gems of fame. Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. Stretched farther than horizons. I could see Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Are merely words that mean no more than life. Stranger than ever came Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; Than any known in lands that never were, Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. You proved illusion not more strong than oaken I have met darker nights than that of old, And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, More modish than the current mode; Greater than Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. The school was more than popular Which is better than all, Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes Of flowers that die, That murmur of things that wane, Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies Is the voice of Beauty that dies. That I seek. For pleasures and joys that she knows not, for a new and monstrous delight; As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, 351 105.5 083.4 086.8 128.1 007.33 010.8 012.23 014.19 032.4 032.6 039.4 041.3 041.5 043.14 048.7 051.11 051.49 067.23 080.8 093.2 096.52 102.4 109.31 111.2 113.3 115.8 119.8 120.5 122.9 124.3 124.4 128.6 133.9 137.24 140.5 143.6 001.1 001.6 001.10 001.12 001.13 001.14 003.4 003.18 003.34 004.5 004.6 352 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, Yea, thy lips that softly smile, Thy cheeks that glow, That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn With lips that to thine own lips burn, Remember the days that will come of the breaking Enigmatic regions that no eye can know, The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. That love and passion weary all too soon. That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, And bitter all the poison that it brings; Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers Pass, with all joy that passes, Pass, with pleasure that fades Die, with the leaves that drift Die, with Beauty that dies That still preserve dark ancient stains Lie only shards of that dread doom That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, And hanging creepers that reluctantly Of that malign, close-hidden ebon pool. Descending into midnight depths that lurked The songs that Sappho sung, Of golden voices that will never speak; All things that thou dost love, All things that thou wouldst know. The face that haunts thy memory? The mortal flesh that dies? I found or made new pleasures that I shall not tell; I know that death itself will never bring release; What forms were those that through the forest sleeping And find that what I thought so great is but You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. A golden throat, a golden song that fail— A girdle that slips from a maiden’s hips— A form that clings to a satyr sings, That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, 004.8 004.16 004.17 004.76 004.77 005.3 006.14 007.4 007.16 007.24 007.43 007.59 007.62 008.8 008.9 008.13 008.14 009.7 009.13 009.15 009.17 009.19 010.3 010.15 010.16 011.6 011.10 011.11 011.14 011.19 012.28 012.34 012.41 012.42 012.47 012.49 013.14 013.30 015.17 016.3 017.7 020.4 020.9 020.12 021.7 023.3 023.5 024.11 025.1 T That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, Soft plants and creatures, dead, that still draw breath. Ah, God! That I had genius, mad and great, That in the later days a boy would come, That once a poet lived and loved and died, The older glory of the days that were I do not know. There is an ache that fills That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies And of that thing there came to me a fear And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. For I was his, that horror of the dead. That blasted all the worlds that were. That brought to Mirtylon its doom, That made Serise’s red dwarfs glad. They gazed on stars that now are dust, The things that mirthful wizards killed On the meads that are rarest, To the star that is fairest; In your lips that were tender And the ways that I cherished. Oh enchantment that entices, We left her only to the waiting earth that gave And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; And knowing that my quest at last must falter I searched the years that hold all things immortal In continents and islands that are sunken, The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, Still seeking that which I had never found, I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem The phantom that so greatly I desired The night that brings a sleep. Secret the roots that enter the ground, Secret the winds that hollowly pass Long are the roots that enter the soil That once ran red as blood So fair she is that beauty hath no graces That stir the wakened rose; Enchanted me with dreams that weave; And fugues parade from hearts that grieve? To capture moods that change or leave; Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? For a love that was fleeting as day? 353 025.2 025.4 025.7 025.12 025.13 026.2 026.6 026.12 027.9 028.5 028.10 029.9 029.11 029.14 030.8 030.18 030.32 030.33 030.47 033.10 033.12 033.19 033.24 033.39 035.11 036.6 036.15 036.17 036.21 036.28 036.41 036.42 036.46 036.53 036.64 038.1 038.2 038.9 039.11 041.1 041.6 042.5 042.8 042.11 043.3 043.4 043.8 354 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? Mine the love that can fade not or falter, Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly And the form that it covers is thine. There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, And phantoms that seemed hopelessly and lostly A sibilance that followed as I stole We were the colours that his love Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept That almost hissed or the shimmering mist That hung on our deep sea-graves. Then ocean received the husks that we heaved Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, So few the days, so much that one could know, That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, Or gold that never yet no man befriended, A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. That flowered not, and all things weep to die, Of the dual flower that alone endures; And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; That doth the icon and the dream inherit, Oh light that never shone for me one ray, Oh bells that shall not ever ring for me, Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. That has no counterpart in lands of time No voice to tell of days that were, All the slime and mould that slowly spread That presses on my grave and me, rolled Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Of worm that multiplied on worm I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, I feel the worms that leap But now that time is gone of yore With that wild color overspread, That her domain has overrun. Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. Lost in that dim dawn-age he died alone, That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, That enters her wide domain. The rush of waves that seek in vain That streams from her glowing body bare They are curious things that hide in the woods And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Blown petals that fall, Murmur of all things that wane, Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, 043.12 043.19 043.20 043.33 043.36 044.2 045.2 045.15 045.18 046.34 048.7 048.15 048.16 048.21 049.26 050.1 050.5 051.3 051.14 051.16 051.30 051.39 051.48 051.57 051.58 051.63 053.3 053.12 054.14 054.22 054.24 054.27 054.35 054.36 054.51 055.7 055.12 055.16 059.15 060.5 060.9 060.16 060.18 060.20 062.1 062.7 063.6 063.10 063.12 T Like a mist that fades into sodden skies The songs that Sappho sung Of golden voices that again will speak; That play for pagan festival. All things that you might love, All things that you would know. The face that haunts your heart and mind. Antistrophes that seven before him knew, Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain Of secret worlds that have no name or place. Stray hands and heads that crawled; in nests I found Of some gray form that made a rattling sound. Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke My neck, and heard that husky, gurgling choke It was my own; my own face showed that hue, My own the lineaments that seemed to be That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred Pursued and pounced; an arm that had no source But all at once the shell of that cocoon A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. In that far, future time where I was fleeing That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. With blood that had so curious a glow; That clove through midnight where no other stirred, That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. Made mutterings that sounded like low glee. Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, What are the dim dread images that bind Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? And I, and all that phantom city, died. There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; Around and see the comrades that are mine; I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever Whence came that unknown color? Was its source That followed through the chamber where I fled. In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, That swiftly toward me now began to fall, I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding That pierced the blackness of a starless sky That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. And of that thing swept over me a fear For I was its, that horror from the dead. 355 063.13 067.28 067.34 067.37 067.41 067.42 067.47 068.7 070.6 070.8 072.3 072.6 072.11 072.12 073.5 073.6 074.6 074.13 075.9 075.14 076.1 076.8 076.11 076.12 076.14 078.12 079.5 080.2 080.6 081.4 082.4 082.6 083.3 083.5 083.8 085.4 086.14 087.5 087.10 087.13 088.1 088.6 088.10 088.13 089.1 089.3 090.8 090.9 090.14 356 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And I in all that solitude lie slain. I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... I too was fastened on that tree of death. Of wave that smote against colossal wave. That feebly moved its pulpy, eyeless head. Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, And dreams that can not be. And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, And all love’s joys that were. That scarcely passes soon Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, Now day dies, and night falls, and that great summer moon Of caravans that throng To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, Who can blame the mouth that sips Joys that pass and youth too fleet, That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; Are merely words that mean no more than life. The dying wonder of the world that is, And all that ever will be known, is Death. They know that it will take me years to die, And bloated carrion rats that near me sit! Around, and see the comrades that I had; Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Of some white form that made a rattling sound; How glad I was that I at last awoke! And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; And both my hands were covered with that red, I scarce could know the evil that I did; And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had That all would pass, that nothing would abide. And light that never shone Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, A glow that develops and flows from the inner being I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. I am awed that flower and forest and leaf be shaken With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. 091.8 091.9 091.10 091.11 092.14 093.14 094.10 095.14 096.5 096.6 096.32 096.44 096.47 096.53 096.54 096.57 096.62 096.67 096.68 096.85 096.93 096.100 100.3 100.5 101.12 101.17 102.4 102.7 102.20 103.3 103.8 103.10 104.3 104.6 104.14 105.6 105.7 106.1 106.6 106.9 106.11 106.13 107.11 109.27 110.2 110.3 110.6 110.7 110.8 T To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing It is so strange, Beloved, that everything has blended It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. Than any known in lands that never were, Love comes. I know that I shall never be Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace The subtle pleasure that you give to me, Oh love, it is enough that I may be Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; Than that just passed held sweeter, fuller dowers; Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, You care for that warm house of all your own, Reveal the symmetry that should be shown Of modes that will not match despite your pains. There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom That you make these to that a sacrifice, Surely the loveliness that men say lies To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Were errors that have lost their hold on me. Or think that those sweet words were meant to be That says, These things shall be, and they are so: I have met darker nights than that of old, For the winds that have blown, And the days that are dead, For the springs that are gone. For the times that are over, For the grain that is reaped In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, That dead body in the ooze. That she had always invitations, She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. 357 110.12 110.14 111.4 111.7 111.9 111.11 112.15 112.16 113.3 113.9 114.6 114.10 114.13 115.4 115.8 116.7 117.2 117.4 117.8 118.1 118.5 118.6 118.7 118.11 118.13 119.3 119.14 120.4 120.6 120.14 121.4 122.6 122.9 123.2 123.3 123.4 123.7 123.8 124.7 124.10 124.12 125.9 126.12 128.18 128.27 129.4 129.9 129.12 358 That’s The A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. All the least lines that spelled I am doom that all dooms follow, I am all cups that fill, I am all deaths that chill, I am all life that springs anew, That once was man. Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden And I hope that you won’t cry dear, Though I know that you are pretty, That your words are clever, witty, Can’t you see that I’d be able And other such-like things as that is Are things that never ought to bore ’em. That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. Finding that life from end to end Ran a pipe-line that tapped him, That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget That’s natural artifice in you; the way “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, Like the pain in a passionate note Like the voiceless cry Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, Like a mist that fades in the sodden skies Is the voice of Beauty that dies. Oh, the nights are long And the days are dead, And the trees are bare And the skies are lead, And the wind is blowing cold. The days are short And the days are dark, And the north-wind—hark! About the eaves, The dry dead leaves Has the cold of death From the Arctic gloom. ‘Neath the lowering skies As it stirs the dust The days are drear, And the long nights near When the cold monotone Of the wind will moan Oh, the nights are long And the days are dead, 131.12 132.5 133.22 133.28 133.30 133.31 133.72 134.17 135.2 135.4 135.5 135.8 137.15 137.22 138.4 142.7 145.4 146.3 114.4 139.12 001.1 001.2 001.3 001.5 001.9 001.11 001.12 001.13 001.14 002.3 002.4 002.5 002.6 002.7 002.8 002.9 002.11 002.13 002.15 002.18 002.19 002.22 002.23 002.25 002.26 002.27 002.28 002.33 002.34 T And the wind is blowing cold. With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, The passion-born kiss and caress of my maddening desire; The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses All the night. At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; Till the dawn. Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Shall lose all Beauty in the end, The scented hair above thy brow, Where the lilies bloom above; By the girls they gave their love. Even the least. Beauty must die. Never will Beauty escape the grave, Never will mortal outlive the tomb— Life is the gift to a slave. Thou art loveliest of the things I know; Sleeping beneath the grass; Let us forget the passing of years, The years of the past have long since flown, The flowers of old are overblown, As the forgotten girls who placed them there. And the song of Beauty for ever dying Is whispered by the sad wind sighing The lips of the singers of Greece are still, The past is forgotten, its lips are dumb, For us the future never will come, And while the fleeting hours away; That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn And never will the present cease, When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking Remember the days that will come of the breaking Remember the dust. Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Liliths look beyond the sketchbook’s leaf, Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, 359 002.35 003.2 003.5 003.6 003.11 003.14 003.15 003.20 003.21 003.25 003.26 003.29 003.33 003.34 003.36 003.38 004.5 004.11 004.19 004.26 004.28 004.34 004.36 004.37 004.38 004.40 004.44 004.52 004.55 004.56 004.60 004.61 004.62 004.64 004.68 004.69 004.72 004.76 004.78 005.1 005.3 005.6 006.7 006.10 006.20 007.1 360 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei All night I sought the poisonous fruit of her; Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, And all the ecstasy and dolorous delight. The intolerable sanctity of sin; For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved And all the swooning, sick, and ravishing caresses More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; And still I sought the overpowering drunken rapture, The beauty, terror, and the pain of love. Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, And so I lay between the arms of my beloved, All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. And all the beauty of that night now lies decaying, The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; The memory of the elder ecstasy has faded, The tale is told of years of long ago. And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, The vacant spaces of the weary night; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, For gall and ash are all the ecstasy. Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, Unto the end I worship and adore; Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, But bitter is the end of love and man’s desire, And bitter all the poison that it brings; All night I lay between the arms of my beloved, The idol in my shrine of ebony, Lovely as any girl the world has seen, For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. Rest, with the cold ground resting Rest, with the dear things lying And the tired day; Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers Dream, with the flowers dreaming, On the dead earth; Dream, with the brown grass withering As the mist and the rain; Die, with the leaves that drift 007.2 007.3 007.4 007.5 007.6 007.7 007.8 007.10 007.13 007.15 007.19 007.23 007.26 007.27 007.28 007.33 007.37 007.39 007.40 007.43 007.44 007.45 007.46 007.47 007.48 007.49 007.50 007.51 007.53 007.55 007.56 007.57 007.58 007.59 007.61 007.62 007.63 008.7 008.11 008.12 009.1 009.3 009.6 009.7 009.9 009.10 009.11 009.16 009.17 T On the autumnal gust; In the stirless dust; Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting Forget, with the long, final forgetting Of the oblivious years. The presences pass everywhere More ghostly than the faint starlight. And never footsteps tread the ground. And underneath the shroud of gloom No traveler crosses now the land, The desolation tomblike, sere, The dried-up seas, the deserts drear. The cold apocalypse of sand. Upon the ruined planet dwell For none are left the tale to tell. Into the shadowland I made my way Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof I passed and reached the black pool’s rock-strewn edge. Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge Within those precincts of the spectral night’s I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, Within the pool so fathomless and dark. I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths And by the dark caress was claimed forever, And in the waters saw my own face drown, I offer thee the moan I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. The poppies of the dead THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. DEATH: I offer thee the wealth More fabulous than all the gems of fame, THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. The songs that Sappho sung, By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; The lips of her of Troy, The beauty of her immarbled by the Greek; The vanished joy The sound of perished lutes The glory of THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. The face that haunts thy memory? The soft, red lips? The shadowy eyes? The mortal flesh that dies? THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! 361 009.18 009.20 009.21 009.23 009.24 010.7 010.8 010.12 010.14 010.17 010.18 010.19 010.20 010.21 010.24 011.1 011.2 011.4 011.7 011.9 011.12 011.13 011.15 011.17 011.18 011.20 011.22 011.23 011.24 012.3 012.5 012.7 012.12 012.17 012.18 012.23 012.26 012.28 012.30 012.31 012.32 012.33 012.35 012.39 012.43 012.47 012.48 012.49 012.53 362 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei I weary of the old monotony of things; The song of life is but a tedious, bitter moan; The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze And I have had terrific grief, and known the cry Nothing in all the universe is left for me, For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies Beyond the shadows of the shrouded deep He peered, and in the curtained realms of sleep He sought the infinite in life, but now Among the greater infinite he quests, And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests Before the greater dream whose dawn The earth could not contain His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky To read the tale of star and sun, But found no other than the great refrain: For him who sought the mystery, The guessless riddle of infinity. And fixed for ever on the shoreless sea. The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, The air hung slumbrous in the drowsy heat, When down the hillside came a long, low crying, And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; Far on the hills, I heard the notes of rapture Tremble upon the scented air of night, The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling In lyric passion rose the piper’s song, Above the bacchanal in the forest dwelling What forms were those that through the forest sleeping Danced and revelled amid the olive-grove? To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, The rapturous music poured in lyric streams From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? In the glade. From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; A frantic whisper with the wind is blended 013.1 013.2 013.3 013.13 013.18 013.19 013.23 013.26 013.31 014.1 014.2 014.4 014.5 014.6 014.7 014.14 014.16 014.17 014.18 014.19 014.25 014.26 014.30 014.35 015.1 015.2 015.3 015.5 015.6 015.9 015.10 015.12 015.13 015.14 015.15 015.17 015.18 015.20 015.25 015.26 015.30 015.31 015.34 015.35 015.36 015.40 015.41 015.42 015.43 T A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— Of desolation and the livid dead, You flare up in the all-consuming flame, You drift along the desert’s burning sands; You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, The dripping symbol of a murderer’s hands. The poppy yielded you demented dreams, Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, Swoons in the moonless olive grove; Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; He seeks to allay the old desire, She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, For the white-limbed god. The rose and the violet bind her hair; Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, The lonely, lovely sea-maidens call, With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, The white-caps and the foam their coronal. The sea’s eternal mystery, And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. A rapture in the night, The clear, pure warble of a nightingale In the breathless, waiting morn; The glasses clink for a Bacchic drink— What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! A wine-red toast to the health of the host— Song and the Devil and Wine are good! The table is spread and the flagon red For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Song and the Devil and Wine are good! To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! Lust, and the red, red wine! The rose, the grape, and a god are mine! Lust, and the red, red wine! He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. He burst asunder all the whelming bars From all the hate of all those bitter scars. For ever mounting past the realm of light, He stood at last before the citadel 363 015.45 015.46 015.47 017.3 017.5 017.6 017.7 017.8 017.13 017.15 018.2 018.6 018.10 019.2 019.4 019.6 020.1 020.5 020.6 020.7 020.8 020.10 020.11 020.12 021.2 021.5 021.6 022.1 022.2 022.3 022.4 022.5 022.7 022.8 022.9 022.11 022.12 023.1 023.2 023.4 023.6 023.8 024.1 024.2 024.4 024.5 024.8 024.9 024.10 364 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, And on the doors of doom, disdainful, hurled The growth of seeds of morbid beauty, sown Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, To paint the things I never shall relate. That in the later days a boy would come, And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb The older glory of the days that were Was there a goddess in the days of old, It slumbers deep beneath the fabled hills, A phantom of the dead, forgotten Greek. Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, The listening ear; its tones are softly heard With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave For I was his, that horror of the dead. Have known the fungi of the moon, Have seen the blood-red plenilune. Thine eyes were at the avatar And saw the space-invading star That blasted all the worlds that were. Have seen the fall of many kings, The death of pale-green bloated things. To see the Hylots of Calair, And thou hast known the azure mist They passed the land where flowers gnaw The dark star’s necrophilic race. With knowledge of the carrion They saw the mighty Atthla fall With visions of the stellar pits, The things that mirthful wizards killed Beyond the age of any sun; Until the last oblivion. For they are blinded with the glut The flowing porphyry The beauty of thy features, I have drunk at the fountains Of the gods, I inherit The nectar of their chalice And the lotus of their leaven, I have dwelt in the palace On the meads that are rarest, From the way I have taken To the star that is fairest; From the sweep of vast spaces And the suns eternal, Where I entered the traces In the soft, first capture. And the old stars are sunken 024.11 024.13 025.6 025.7 025.14 026.2 026.3 026.12 027.1 027.12 027.14 028.3 028.6 029.2 029.3 029.14 030.2 030.4 030.5 030.7 030.8 030.10 030.12 030.14 030.17 030.23 030.28 030.31 030.37 030.46 030.47 030.50 030.52 030.55 032.1 032.5 033.3 033.4 033.5 033.6 033.7 033.10 033.11 033.12 033.13 033.14 033.15 033.20 033.23 T And the ways that I cherished. Shall I wander in the hollows Where the asphodels are springing? Or remain by the willows Whence the last birds are winging? But the eyes have no vision, And the heart holds its ravage, And the mind’s decision, The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers Out of the mystical spaces flung beyond, The luminous shadow of the infinite, And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... And all the glory faded from the skies. We buried her in the solemn fall With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; We left her staring at the musty pall, We shivered in the quiet air, We left her only to the waiting earth that gave Athwart the circling citadel of stars, The secret of eternal avatars. And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, I searched the years that hold all things immortal And traveled backward past the age of man Still farther back before the stars were spawning The spheres that spin of chance the blind and dumb, I peered far down the final future ages, I watched the universe grow cold and chill; The scattered symbols of those closing pages I watched on earth the littler things around; The still-eluding dream. The phantom that so greatly I desired The night that brings a sleep. Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Beyond the soaring clouds’ infinity; Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. Secret the roots that enter the ground, Secret the winds that hollowly pass Under the grass? Deep stems twining around the mandrake, The blood’s full worth. Long are the roots that enter the soil What shall reward the delver’s toil Or the open arms, or the eyes of glass; Under the grass. When all the olden days are over, We will pour ashes from the phials The roses, crushed, lie scattered everywhere; 365 033.24 033.25 033.26 033.27 033.28 033.33 033.34 033.35 034.1 034.2 034.5 034.9 034.14 034.15 034.17 035.1 035.2 035.3 035.5 035.11 036.2 036.4 036.10 036.17 036.18 036.27 036.28 036.33 036.34 036.35 036.44 036.48 036.53 036.64 037.2 037.10 037.14 038.1 038.2 038.4 038.5 038.8 038.9 038.11 038.14 038.16 039.1 039.10 040.1 366 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The fire is cold; no fuming censers flare; No gleam illumes the hoofprints on the lawn. For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. Her step is lighter than the summer breezes That stir the wakened rose; The storied queens of old? White poppy of the crimson eve— Nor always full the charming sleeve— I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? I have sundered the stars away; Of the phantoms that are not, but seem? In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, I have burned all my flame at the altar, Was the tribute then given in vain? Mine the love that can fade not or falter, As the stars are, my love is eternal. And its death is the death of the world. I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? On the nectar of love I have fed, Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? Shall the poppy be flameless and dead? And conceals like a curtain the shrine, And the form that it covers is thine. There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. And a presence of something supernal drifts over the springsweet earth, And the bitter sleep and the sadness have fled in a strange rebirth. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, There where the gnarled limbs twisted I saw the whispering knoll. 040.3 040.4 040.5 040.7 040.8 041.5 041.6 041.10 042.2 042.17 043.2 043.3 043.4 043.6 043.12 043.13 043.15 043.17 043.18 043.19 043.23 043.24 043.26 043.27 043.28 043.30 043.31 043.32 043.34 043.36 044.1 044.2 044.3 044.4 044.5 044.6 044.7 045.1 045.4 T Strange was the night, and stranger I thought I heard the eerie And mistily shone the ghostly Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered Upon the whispering knoll. I was the first to tinge his pen; I was the only colour when I gave him the pall of Death’s last blight, For sick flames and the crawling dust, I am the colour deep blood-red, Risen a spectre from the dead Fourth was I in the coloured host, I was the sign of royal state, Of the mad matriarch who sate We were the colours that his love I am the colour yet to be; I am the sweet close winding-sheet Sunk beneath the washing wave; In the dark sea-grave. On the cities sleeping there Whisper of the days of old, But the gulf is cold Of the splendor known no more, Watch upon the ruins gleaming On the sunken shore. Where the fabled roses bloomed. In the streets now covered deep, Lies upon the dead drowned men. In the depths of gloomy murk: Where the strange sea-creatures lurk. From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Before we had lost the shore. For the plague germs fed on the sick and the dead And the living walked less like men Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept When the night came down again. In the distance sank the coast in the dank The twilight brought no ease from the hot Inferno, to the waves That almost hissed or the shimmering mist While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked Her bow toward the cleaner west Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled By the legions of the pest. Then ocean received the husks that we heaved And one by one with the setting sun The shadows slipped from our side. As we strode the streets of Tyre The city rang with joyful call 367 045.5 045.9 045.13 045.19 045.20 046.2 046.3 046.6 046.14 046.18 046.19 046.26 046.30 046.31 046.34 046.42 046.45 047.2 047.5 047.9 047.12 047.16 047.18 047.20 047.21 047.31 047.34 047.36 047.38 047.41 048.1 048.4 048.5 048.6 048.7 048.8 048.9 048.13 048.14 048.15 048.17 048.18 048.19 048.20 048.21 048.23 048.24 049.1 049.2 368 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei As we strode down the streets of Tyre. The sun lay warm along our way, A heady fragrance filled the air From flowers strown upon the ground The garlands from their brows unbound The sun lay warm along our way. Of those the days before the quest. “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng The face was lost and I had guessed It knew me not from all the rest, And everywhere the women flinging The wreath, the garland, and the rose, So few the days, so much that one could know, So great the gap, and firmly barred the doors, But still assail the deeper firmament. Or purple, dear to children of the dust, Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste Except the fair, faint dream of beauty slowly The ever fresh design of your own fashion. Of the dual flower that alone endures; You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth And Psyche hover on the summer air. And sprites invisible attend the meeting, And all the laughing nymphs that make earth fair; The elements their four-fold essence send you, In your steps on the wakened ways of earth Oh love consummate in the flesh and spirit, That doth the icon and the dream inherit, That doth the icon and the dream inherit, Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, Shine bright, ring out, attend the sweet assay Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. A gray dusk mists the air Of sun illumes the mouldy balustrades. The three All else is still the realm around, To coffin. earth, the dead. All the rottenness, I dread; All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; All the slime and mould that slowly spread In my tomb beneath the ground, When I felt through me spread the germ I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, I feel the worms that leap The harvest, and to revel deep Stained is the coffin floor And rotten to the very core, Beyond the window’s tracery 049.7 049.8 049.9 049.10 049.12 049.14 049.16 049.17 049.18 049.20 049.23 049.24 050.1 050.4 050.14 051.2 051.5 051.9 051.28 051.30 051.33 051.37 051.38 051.39 051.41 051.45 051.47 051.48 051.48 051.50 051.51 051.59 051.63 053.6 053.10 053.14 053.17 054.11 054.12 054.13 054.14 054.17 054.26 054.35 054.36 054.38 054.46 054.50 055.1 T Of arabesques the blood-red sun, Out of the window’s smouldering red In all the years by time begun, Her face has watched the dying sun. She scans the shadows of her land, The crimson, never-setting sun, The blood-red waving wastes of sand Ever the orb’s fantastic glare Meets the mysterious woman’s stare Beyond the lifetime of the sun. Shadowy night and the world to cross— Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? An unseen step on the creeping moss— Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? Shadowy night and the world to cross— Never a light to mark the trail But spectral flame on the puff-pod floss And the stars in the drowning pools are pale. Shadowy night and the world to cross— Is it the willows shiver and sigh? The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— Why do the mandrakes fear to die? A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, Not a creature lived in all the land, And the little red eyes in the serpent’s head And the slimy things of the slimy dead Not a thing disputed the lordly worm Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, As deathless and old as the deathless sea, And the worm is king for eternity, But the musty tale can never be told Of the realm that rose from stale sea-waves, Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, Of the pulpy head that never grows old, For the tale is the grave’s. She has yielded to the kiss of night, On her brow the moonbeams lie as lace, Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, The prehistoric huntsman in his grave, Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between The rocks on a sunken shore. The rush of waves that seek in vain To capture a breast, to hold the hair The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; The flitting figures gather in the pale moonlight Phantasmal fire burns the band of sorcery, 369 055.2 055.5 055.6 055.8 055.9 055.10 055.11 055.13 055.15 055.20 056.1 056.2 056.3 056.4 056.5 056.6 056.7 056.8 056.9 056.10 056.11 056.12 057.3 057.6 057.7 057.9 057.11 057.12 057.17 057.19 057.21 057.22 057.23 057.24 057.25 058.1 058.9 059.2 059.3 059.7 059.14 060.1 060.3 060.11 060.18 060.19 061.1 061.3 061.9 370 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The bat-things weave, They are curious things that hide in the woods And cower behind the black tree boles Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, And the echoing mirth of a sullen mutter, And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies Over the treetops, under the boughs, Cover the form whose hand still gropes. With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, Like the ghost of an echoing note Like the rustle of small Like the sound of the sea or the rain, Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, Is the dream as it dies. The world is an opium-dream; I am the sleeper She will go in the cold moonlight Over the dreaming grass; To her tryst she will go in the night, As the wind she will pass. Through the still, sleeping glade Of the woods to a spot forlorn, She will move through the moveless shade Where the trees form a little dark room: She will halt where the moonrays trace She will sink on the cold, cold ground, On the old and grass-covered mound Where he sleeps with the dead. She will rest on the lawn; She will dream as the night wanes slowly, Till the coming of dawn. Will watch while she waits on the stone; She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration She waits the coming of the golden guest; The sun’s rim slides above the flaming, far horizon, The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, And glowing brightlier, awakening seem the skies, on She drinks the earthly and heavenly beauty of morning; She hears the birds’ glad rapture and singing glee; Toward the sea. I offer you the moan The poppies of the dead Death: I offer you the wealth More fabulous than all the gems of fame. The songs that Sappho sung By Paphian maids in gardens swallowed of the sea; The lips of Egypt, Troy, 061.10 062.1 062.2 062.4 062.6 062.7 062.8 062.10 063.2 063.3 063.5 063.9 063.12 063.14 064.1 064.2 065.1 065.2 065.3 065.4 065.5 065.6 065.7 065.10 065.11 065.13 065.15 065.16 065.18 065.19 065.20 065.22 066.1 066.3 066.5 066.6 066.9 066.10 066.11 066.13 066.14 066.16 067.3 067.12 067.18 067.23 067.28 067.30 067.31 T The vanished joy The sound of ancient lutes The glory of The face that haunts your heart and mind. Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, From having watched the dead rose petals strew He wins the long awaited separation Of flesh and spirit, and attains the crown The world of which no tale is handed down. He barricades himself against the world: From towers topless as the realms of sleep He scans the regions lying all around, Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. Each vespertime, he wearies of the view Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. As fearful as the haunts of the insane. The days for which the heart should be most grateful For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, And when I crossed the imperial weaving span And so I soared on pinions of the night Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule Out of a dusky corner came the stare Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound The head most strangely seemed like one I knew; My own the lineaments that seemed to be Bloodless, the blind eyes of eternity, The mouth where something dark was trickling through. As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Then at the top I stood on magic squares With signs unreadable, on each the shard I watched them till, from out the greater dark, The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead The substance of it in the long ago. But all at once the shell of that cocoon But something from the dark side of the moon All substances and creatures from the bond The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. You drift upon the moonlight hovering near How strange. How strangely empty is the room. Progressing slowly underneath the door And widening inch by inch along the floor 371 067.33 067.35 067.39 067.47 068.2 068.3 068.9 068.10 068.14 069.2 069.3 069.5 069.8 069.9 069.12 069.13 069.14 070.3 070.4 070.9 071.5 071.9 071.10 072.5 072.7 073.1 073.6 073.7 073.8 073.10 073.13 074.1 074.5 074.7 074.9 074.10 074.11 075.2 075.3 075.8 075.9 075.12 076.9 076.11 076.14 077.3 077.14 078.2 078.3 372 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Before me, one closed portal, and the flow The door must open, showing why the hue Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; For in the talons I was fast immured. And when the talons loosened, I could see The burning harpy eyes, head of a hag, That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. I begged the gods to save me from such pain. Then beating to the chambers of my brain The answer came, where I in torment lay, I knocked upon the portal till with clang On long, metallic clang, the brazen door Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. Past them the leopards led me on and on Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. The fleshly flowers whispered avidly: And all the little jeweled blades of grass I looked across the great plain warily. To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; What are the dim dread images that bind Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? I could not turn though fronted by the rack. And so I slowly raise the shade to greet Whatever on the other side should lie, The leering of a huge and sightless eye. Beyond the rack’s red searing agony It merely hinted of the coming week. The sun stared on me like a blood-red eye, In all this hideous land the only soul. My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. To reach the haven I would never find. For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. They caught me in the wasteland in the west. Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, The dark, walled city slowly came in view, The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; The ebony gates, one savage curse I cried, The chewed remains of something used for bait; Around and see the comrades that are mine; 078.5 078.10 078.13 079.1 079.2 079.4 079.7 079.8 079.11 079.12 080.2 080.10 080.12 080.13 081.1 081.2 081.8 081.9 081.12 081.14 082.1 082.3 082.5 082.10 082.12 083.1 083.2 083.5 083.8 083.10 083.11 083.12 083.14 084.9 084.14 085.5 085.6 085.10 085.12 085.14 086.1 086.4 086.6 086.9 086.10 086.11 086.13 087.6 087.10 T Beyond the violet, within the red? That followed through the chamber where I fled. Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall The unknown color hostile in pursuit That pierced the blackness of a starless sky Across the rubble, creeping, crawling, gliding, The face a group of eyes above a blur With all the dreadful cerements of the grave Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave And of its flesh the rotten remnants gave Its footsteps shuffling closer on the stone, For I was its, that horror from the dead. What followed me across the lifeless plain? The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, Throughout the sculptors’ workshop, uncomplete The naked torso of a goddess glowing Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Had hooves, the arms no hands but splaying fall Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, In silence absolute the lifeless land Alone protruded from the desert sand, Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung To every branch. The tree had long since died, But all the strange and withered things still hung All night I heard the tolling of a bell; All night I heard the cadences of doom Across the boiling seas’ own muffled boom; From sunken cities rose the solemn knell. The waters mounted in one surge whose swell Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, The tolling came like measures for a spell. Then all the seas united with a roar Engulfed again the riddles of the ocean; The bell beneath the seas, beyond the shore. Grew fainter in the silence of its grave; I heard alone the surging tides in motion. I dreamed the waters of the world had died, The ocean beds were open now, and free, And all strange things once covered by the sea I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, I saw the dwellers of the ocean night, The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; And in the fading vision of my sleep I sink back in the pillows of my deep divan With the lithe Persian, I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; I clap, and at the sign 373 088.2 088.6 088.9 088.12 089.3 089.5 089.12 090.2 090.3 090.6 090.13 090.14 091.1 091.10 091.11 092.2 092.4 092.6 092.7 092.12 092.13 093.1 093.4 093.9 093.10 093.11 094.1 094.2 094.3 094.4 094.5 094.6 094.8 094.9 094.11 094.12 094.13 094.14 095.1 095.2 095.3 095.9 095.10 095.11 095.12 096.8 096.9 096.20 096.21 374 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Come forth my slaves and eunuchs and the dancing girls: I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Quite overscents the room, And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, O Cyrenaya, take away the sweet, dark gum, The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, And melancholy, dream away the afternoon Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer The faithful, with far chaunting. Allah! the kneeling figures in devotion pray, Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, And the cicadas sing, And champak fragrance makes the drowsy senses swoon, From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Begins the journey long. Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go And leave behind me all the weary works of man, And take the caravan The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Take, or the taking never will be thine; Red roses in the overflowing wine. Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! Drink! For the flagon is full and deep! Drink! For the sheer great joy of drinking! The maid I love was buried long ago; The dust of centuries lies on her head; The endless silence of the endless dead; She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. Who can blame the mouth that sips I have awakened in the fevered midnight noon, In the breathless rapture of the scented dreamful air; I am the night and the garden and all things swoon In the mystical burning pallor of the moon I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; 096.22 096.23 096.25 096.27 096.32 096.34 096.38 096.41 096.44 096.56 096.64 096.65 096.73 096.77 096.78 096.80 096.86 096.87 096.88 096.91 096.92 096.94 096.95 096.96 096.97 096.98 096.99 096.101 097.1 097.2 097.6 097.8 098.1 098.2 098.3 098.4 098.5 098.6 098.7 099.1 099.2 099.6 099.8 100.3 101.1 101.2 101.3 101.4 101.6 T The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; By the breath of its shameless lips I am lightly kissed The summer blooms. Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; The monstrous spell of the night is an amorous cover For the soft flowers awaiting the lips of the lover For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken The ruined relics of the ancient past, The dying wonder of the world that is, The soon-to-be-forgotten future days. The trees, the birds, the fleeting springs, the years, The mountains and the rivers whisper: Death. And found, the one reality is Death. And find, the one reality is Death. The sum of all man knows, the sum of all The years since Time began, the sum of thought, The sum of hope and faith and life, the sum Of all the stars and all the universe, And all around, the weary corpses lie; Around, and see the comrades that I had; The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: And from a dusky corner came the stare Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon, And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, And through the riven air, there harshly swept The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering. But from the sundered room I never crept— That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; And all the air was misty as a cloud. I scarce could know the evil that I did; The air from some vast stellar carnage bled And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had And DOOM had fallen on the universe. The heavens like a dead, colossal hearse For Death the Conqueror at last was king; Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. Upon the crimson eve, Deeply the folded roses 375 101.7 101.8 101.10 101.11 101.17 101.18 101.19 101.23 101.26 101.27 101.28 101.29 102.6 102.7 102.8 102.10 102.11 102.13 102.15 102.16 102.17 102.18 102.19 103.2 103.10 103.14 104.4 104.5 105.1 105.3 105.4 105.9 105.10 105.11 105.13 106.6 106.8 106.11 106.12 106.13 107.4 107.5 107.9 107.13 108.1 108.2 108.3 109.2 109.5 376 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Sleep the dim night away 109.7 Grown faint, the winds drift slowly 109.9 Over the jeweled grass, 109.10 Rise in the pale starlight, 109.14 And voices shake the night 109.15 The worlds of sleep and waking, 109.17 And dreams become the real. 109.19 The real world dreams, 109.20 A music in the air, 109.22 The image and the fanes 109.38 Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses 110.1 Comes love, and all the beauty that love possesses, 110.2 A glow that develops and flows from the inner being 110.3 And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. 110.4 I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. 110.6 O Love, the world so shadowy and dim 110.9 Murmurs the music of a magic hymn; 110.10 Is it the glow so magically bringing 110.11 To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? 110.12 So luminous, O Love, the shrine so holy, 110.13 So soft the sound that stirs the night so slowly, 110.14 It is the blessing of a Druid’s prayer, 110.15 So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. 110.16 A flame of the stars, Beloved, burns out of the far-flung spaces 111.1 Leaving the night more luminous than light of the moon; 111.2 Rippling the leaves that sleep in a moonless midnight noon. 111.4 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: 111.6 A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing 111.7 To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; 111.10 It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, 111.11 We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning 112.1 When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: 112.2 We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; 112.6 From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping 112.9 To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; 112.10 We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping 112.11 With weary steps to the old, original end. 112.12 We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: 112.13 We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: 112.14 We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, 112.15 That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. 112.16 Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true 113.8 He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem 113.10 Content to know the image of the dream, 113.11 T These are the things I love you for: the gray So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace That’s natural artifice in you; the way You move: the unexpected things you say; Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace The subtle pleasure that you give to me, The inner beauty I more deeply care For, and the loveliness you watch so well. Of beauty’s rarest harvests, and the hours You are the fairest of the lovely whom For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, I love you for the charm earth gave to you, I love you for the realms of endless view, The lands no traveller ever found on earth; I love you for the beauty all can see, Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways Reveal the symmetry that should be shown To all the world; and dearer still are those Arrays and disarrays the house contains, The changing fancy and the careful rows The artistry external, and I find Encysted from the sight of other eyes; Surely the loveliness that men say lies The years away intended, but for leaping Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; The deadly hardness of reality, And overlook the underlying thrust, What they are told, the falseness never find Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet Assume new meaning and become the prick And naked lay the true design, the trick. The acids would not matter, nor I rue The fall of footsteps light and pantherine The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, The footsteps pantherine upon the ground. For the winds that have blown, And the days that are dead, For the springs that are gone. For the times that are over, For the grain that is reaped And the fallen sweet clover, From the fury of living. Only you, and the past, my dearest Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders I ask for blankness and the dark, dark earth. 377 114.1 114.3 114.4 114.5 114.7 114.10 114.11 114.12 115.6 116.1 116.5 116.6 116.9 116.11 116.12 116.13 117.1 117.4 117.5 117.6 117.7 117.13 119.2 119.3 119.5 119.7 119.11 120.4 120.7 120.11 121.3 121.7 121.9 121.10 121.12 121.13 122.1 122.5 122.14 123.2 123.3 123.4 123.7 123.8 123.9 123.12 123.19 124.10 124.14 378 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, With the breath of the web-faced things asleep A ruby flares in the glistening sky, In the marble palace, gold dwarfs cry, In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, Swart talons toward the ruby turn, All night the blood-red ruby glares, Before the palace a beacon flares, But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs Out of the sky, a black star shines, From the palace, a marble monster whines, On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines Smooth is the liquid ink of the lake, On its shore, mad emeralds burn in the brake, Burn beneath the stagnant skies, And the miles of rotten bogs. Sucking sounds invade the night, That dead body in the ooze. With the fresher tracks of cloven Are like the secret pools of Jupiter. Is as the fall and rise of mist of myrrh. Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, Beyond the black beyond the stellar maze. She liked the texture of a lily, The sight of goblets cool and rounded, The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, More modish than the current mode; She often made the first down payment, And for the rest, she owed, and owed. The primrose path she rarely took The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Lips parting and closing over the draught her There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe; And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. The flagons and bottles and jars that cover her dresser The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The little gods sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. And ashes consume what the elders condemn. The little gods then will tremble and waken And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: The little gods will answer their elders and rise. 125.1 125.2 125.3 125.5 125.6 125.9 125.11 125.13 125.14 125.15 125.17 125.18 125.19 125.21 125.22 126.4 126.8 126.9 126.12 126.14 127.2 127.5 127.7 127.20 128.1 128.2 128.3 128.6 128.7 128.8 128.21 128.24 128.31 129.1 129.2 129.5 129.7 129.8 129.9 129.14 129.16 130.1 130.2 130.3 130.4 130.8 130.9 130.10 130.12 T The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. I hear them in the grass when I am walking Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; I hear them in the rubble of defaced land I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I hear them in the open and in hallways, Here at the house you dwelled Here, by the hand you held All the least lines that spelled I am the master of each living thing, I am the huntsman of each fleeing kind, I am the arrow of the cosmic mind, The great Creator, I am the empty brain I am sunlight on the hill, I am the fleeting dew, From the riddle of the rib I rule the earth From the cry Of infant in the crib Round the bend, I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, I am the cinder wiped away, As the unknown force disposes Of why the plan Or know the song The legend saith: for each, the golden poppy blooms Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Have seen the golden poppy spread its petals fair The legend saith: for each, nepenthe follows sorrow, The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, The golden petals burn, The golden poppy folds and each eternal I Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? The true believer makes his own faith all along The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom We listened to the strange rain Falling on the window-pane By the luscious curtains gleaming. Strange songs filled the air 379 130.13 130.15 130.17 130.18 130.20 131.1 131.2 131.5 131.7 131.12 131.13 131.14 131.15 132.1 132.3 132.5 133.2 133.3 133.4 133.10 133.18 133.20 133.29 133.39 133.42 133.43 133.44 133.49 133.53 133.54 133.61 133.70 133.71 134.1 134.4 134.5 134.7 134.11 134.13 134.15 134.16 134.17 134.19 134.20 134.23 136.1 136.2 136.4 136.5 380 Thee A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei From the one reciting there. On which the cool green rain gleams. Over all the tall wet grass. The names of all the Roman towns; The authors’ names I know by rote, And to the students in my classes, Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. And think the words they drop are jewels. The coeds only get along And win the prof’s eternal pity, The pedants utter strange conceits To prove the brilliance of their wits, The janitors would drip with knowledge, The very mice absorb their wisdom, And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” Within the limits of his nose, The school was more than popular The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream; The monster gods sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. The elder gods have promised a day of returning And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. The monster gods then will tremble and waken And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods dream an apocalyptic dream, And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. The cat on the fence, and world conditions, It’s the break of day, And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Only do we who knew you feel the source, Here on the hillside by the great gnarled boughs Of oak the leaves fall in autumnal haze While over us the wind at twilight soughs, And past the winding river’s end you gaze, Resting beneath the shadow curtain falling Down the far closure of the valley, sky, Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? Now in the mind come messages unspoken, I take the bridgeway you already know. Even as one who loves thee, Love, And I shall join thee, Myrrhiline, Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, I worship thee and ever worship more. 136.6 136.10 136.12 137.4 137.5 137.7 137.18 138.2 138.6 138.7 138.9 138.10 138.20 138.21 138.22 138.25 140.5 141.1 141.2 141.3 141.4 141.5 141.8 141.9 141.10 141.12 141.13 141.15 141.17 141.18 141.20 142.4 143.4 145.5 146.8 147.1 147.2 147.3 147.4 147.5 147.6 147.8 147.9 147.10 147.14 004.3 004.43 007.57 007.60 T Their 381 Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee 008.3 I have been made by thee idolatrous; 008.5 I close thee, pure and rare as ivory, 008.6 For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. 008.12 Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. 008.14 DEATH: I offer thee such dreams 012.1 I offer thee the moan 012.3 I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain 012.5 For thee to reign. 012.6 THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. 012.7 Go! I can not bear thee, Go! 012.10 THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. 012.17 DEATH: I offer thee the wealth 012.18 I offer thee phantasmal gems 012.22 THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. 012.26 DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: 012.27 I offer thee 012.38 THE POET: I scorn thee, Death. 012.43 For this I offer thee: 012.45 Oh Poet, this I offer thee, 012.50 Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, 043.3 I have riven all darkness to find thee. 043.5 Like a priest at a shrine I adore thee, 043.9 I ask no comfort and no ease of thee, 124.9 “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; 137.27 To their tomb. 002.16 Beautiful maidens have their bed 004.25 By the girls they gave their love. 004.28 In their hidden othertime long fled. 006.4 Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper 006.11 Graven deep the riddle of their deep despair. 006.20 Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, 006.22 Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. 006.24 Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, 007.59 Their flame and their tears; 009.22 And in their solemn state, 012.14 Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging 015.21 To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing 015.23 Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming 015.27 Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 The white-caps and the foam their coronal. 020.8 With torture on their burning spits. 030.48 Their secrets will remain untold 030.51 Their purple vision fade and die, 030.54 The nectar of their chalice 033.5 And the lotus of their leaven, 033.6 Of their paradisal heaven. 33.8 And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. 036.25 382 Them A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And twist their sinuous downward course— When he finds their source? Their gentle drapes enfold. The garlands from their brows unbound The elements their four-fold essence send you, Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; Their festful riot in my rotting heap. While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, Their wild eyes glare. With their faces dissolved and deathly heads And in their solemn state Part human creatures creeping from their lair. Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. Their enigmatic laughter filled the aisles; But when I passed and left them in their gloom, And on my flesh their mouths, devouring, fall. To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay But punish, since their power I dared to test. And all around their other victims wait, Like me uncertain of their final fate Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. Another mass their hungry pet half-ate, That force demonic brought its eyes their sheen. They would not burn me quickly on their spit; Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? All things their form reveal, Were errors that have lost their hold on me. Their ravage, if they had not come from you. But the spell-bound half-beasts lie in their lairs She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. Their elders have promised them a day of returning, And rub out the granules of sleep from their eyes: The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The little gods dream their apocalyptic dream; They also ought to know their Caesar, They blandly sit upon their stools That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. Especially when their knees are pretty. To prove the brilliance of their wits, Peopled with ghosts of their invention, To illustrate their attitudes, In their ideal, idyllic college, The very mice absorb their wisdom, Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, And rub out the granules of sleep in their eyes, As the forgotten girls who placed them there. 038.10 038.12 041.12 049.12 051.41 054.24 054.29 054.41 061.5 061.8 062.3 067.14 072.4 080.8 081.8 081.12 081.13 082.14 086.7 086.8 087.2 087.3 087.4 087.7 090.8 103.5 105.8 109.18 120.14 121.14 125.15 129.12 130.5 130.10 130.12 130.18 137.23 138.1 138.4 138.8 138.10 138.14 138.16 138.19 138.21 138.28 138.39 141.10 004.60 T Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, Through them and over them—what shall be found And cast them for our footfall where These, these are gone, nothing of them remains Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm I only sighed to feel them play He sees them ride, and hears the ringing horn. I watched them till, from out the greater dark, Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— Past them the leopards led me on and on But when I passed and left them in their gloom, I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever And in recurring deaths escape them never. With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet I listen, but I do not hear them fall, Their elders have promised them a day of returning, When post-historic revels will unfetter them, I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them when no human voice is talking I hear them in the rubble of defaced land I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, I hear them wide awake or part way resting, I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; I hear them when I am not even questing I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, I hear them by the lake shore and at cliffs of stone; I hear them in the open and in hallways, When post-historic revels will unfetter them, Themselves To any save themselves alone, Then Then let us love tonight, Then, on this paper now so blank and white, And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, Was the tribute then given in vain? Then dreamlikely they uttered And then passed by. Then ocean received the husks that we heaved Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Then live! Live in this dual love, partake Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, Then at the top I stood on magic squares 383 006.8 006.17 006.21 006.23 038.3 049.13 051.8 051.60 054.25 054.30 069.14 074.9 079.2 081.9 081.13 087.13 087.14 110.8 121.9 122.13 130.5 130.6 131.1 131.3 131.5 131.7 131.9 131.10 131.11 131.13 131.14 131.15 141.6 010.23 004.49 025.5 034.16 036.39 043.18 045.17 046.40 048.21 051.26 051.29 051.50 066.15 069.12 074.5 384 There A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Then beating to the chambers of my brain Then hurled me, shapeless, on a needle-bed. As of a lost and hungry child. Then die I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, Then came the rush of hoofbeats and, soft-pressed Then all the seas united with a roar Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging And then they left me, lonely. lying where And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise The little gods then will tremble and waken “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” The monster gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, Then away, away, There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever For a little while, there is light, As the forgotten girls who placed them there. There will be, Though nothing visible is there Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness There is a rush of hooves in the break of dawn; There touches his body lightly a shiver, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, And there are pale, fair faces calling for caresses There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Was there a goddess in the days of old, I do not know. There is an ache that fills There is a language I would fain employ, And after this, there came to me one green And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And of that thing there came to me a fear There is magic, there is splendor In your eyes, there is rapture We left her far more quiet body lying there: And end, there too I sought. There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; There is a faint, far rapture of birds in the breathless beauty of dawn, There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Oh love, there is terror and pity and peace in the gray soft luminous mist, There where the gnarled limbs twisted 080.12 084.8 089.7 091.9 092.12 094.9 095.7 096.41 097.7 103.13 104.11 119.7 130.9 139.5 141.9 141.13 143.3 003.39 004.32 004.60 004.81 010.6 013.11 015.33 015.46 018.5 020.1 020.3 020.9 020.11 022.7 027.1 027.9 028.1 029.1 029.5 029.9 033.17 033.18 035.7 036.16 043.14 044.1 044.2 044.5 045.1 T On the cities sleeping there There could not be so still a sea Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled There was none before you, There will be none after. There will spring no laughter For there will come none after, There are no eyes to see, There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne There is pressure on her blood-red lips, There, ringed with dark trees holy, Discovering there an equal leaden hue, There where I wandered, purple shadows ran As if there never were an end in store. Now here, now there I fled; still on it swept. As I remember, there were clanging gongs As I remember, there were flaming tongs Sheer cliff and rockfall miles below. There, sliding And after this, there came to me one green There lay a bed of shells and bones; I spied But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? There is no picture of her dear dead face, They left me also rotten corpses there There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, And there were living, ancient mummies bound And yet I could not move. There came a creak, And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare. Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream, And through the riven air, there harshly swept There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood There was a sound, gigantically loud, There was a crackle as of blazing wood, Of death itself, there now was left no trace, In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: I know there are no princesses, but you If in your head or heart, there were not room There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; There will be none with you to help you share it, An emptiness not knowing you are there. What they appeared. But there are some so blind So long as there was never danger; Fingers raised; there hangs her mirror—poor mirror— There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice Tall candles there were dreaming From the one reciting there. Like a steak half roasted there. Why, there each young M.A. would go to, There was a young woman I know 385 047.9 048.11 048.19 052.1 052.2 052.5 052.8 053.11 057.2 058.5 065.17 069.11 071.1 078.7 078.8 080.1 080.5 089.4 090.1 095.5 096.17 099.10 103.11 104.1 104.7 104.10 105.4 105.9 105.10 106.1 106.3 106.5 106.7 107.3 111.6 113.1 116.4 118.1 118.3 118.8 121.5 128.14 129.3 129.5 136.3 136.6 136.8 138.36 144.1 386 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei There always was farther to go. There was a young man—such a pity!— Therefor Therefor am I, with what I have, content, Thereof More crazed by all the amorous joys thereof; With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, There’s There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; Thereupon And when I saw these titans, thereupon These Orchids, lilies grow exotic in these drawings, DEATH: Oh Poet, these I offer thee: These, these are gone, nothing of them remains Are these shadows, now, like finger-tips, Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: And when I saw these titans, thereupon These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, These are the things I love you for: the gray These things I love, yet words can never tell Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom That you make these to that a sacrifice, That says, These things shall be, and they are so: We listened to these strange tall dreams None of these things can bother me They By the girls they gave their love. They dwell in dying Mandrikor They dwell in wasteland and in night. Thine eyes were stricken when they saw They passed the land where flowers gnaw They gazed on stars that now are dust, They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. They saw Mercurial cities rust They saw the mighty Atthla fall And when they oped they could not find A star they knew before it came. For they are blinded with the glut Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes Then dreamlikely they uttered From heat and plague as they died, For all things die, but they die most regretful But they whose life was barren are most fretful, And they who merely lived are first to sigh: Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; At me and slyly chuckle while they keep They found him deep within an ancient cave They are curious things that hide in the woods They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; They poured fresh acid on my blinding eyes; They added madness to my frantic cries They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; 144.5 145.1 050.13 007.26 068.5 087.5 081.11 006.1 012.27 051.8 058.7 067.27 081.11 104.9 114.1 114.9 118.11 118.13 122.6 136.9 142.9 004.28 010.1 010.5 030.21 030.23 030.33 030.34 030.35 030.37 030.43 030.44 030.55 045.14 045.17 048.22 051.15 051.17 051.18 054.29 054.40 059.1 062.1 084.1 084.2 084.3 084.5 084.6 T They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Though they, with cruel joy, had given me Though they who tortured me were far behind, For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. They caught me in the wasteland in the west. They dragged me back with never pause for rest. Now they have buried me in this dark pit, Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. They gave me back my eyes so I could peer They left me morsels, curious and queer, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, They know that it will take me years to die, They would not burn me quickly on their spit; They left to me my eyes, so I could stare They left me also rotten corpses there And then they left me, lonely. lying where Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon Blessed be the dead for they are dead. Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. Than they, sow seeds for harvests of no reaping. I answer—if they love me in my fashion, What they appeared. But there are some so blind What they are told, the falseness never find Their ravage, if they had not come from you. That says, These things shall be, and they are so: Behind the amber lids they dimly dream, For she paid half, when they went Dutch, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. They sleep a long sleep by faëry’s phantom fountains, And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. For they are life and love to me, They also ought to know their Caesar, They blandly sit upon their stools And think the words they drop are jewels. Instead, they sound like Major Hooples They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, They paid him to seduce ’em! They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. They sleep a long sleep by Faëry’s phantom fountains, And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. Till with derrick they capped him, They’re Or else they’re much more dumb than geese are. They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, Thick The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled Thickened 387 084.7 084.12 085.9 085.14 086.1 086.5 087.1 087.4 087.9 087.11 103.1 103.3 103.5 103.9 103.11 103.13 105.7 108.1 108.2 108.3 119.8 119.12 121.5 121.7 121.14 122.6 127.7 128.19 130.15 130.16 130.19 130.20 137.17 137.23 138.1 138.2 138.3 138.5 140.12 141.15 141.16 141.19 141.20 145.3 137.24 138.5 007.46 054.23 388 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei The shadows thickened, but a blaze illuming Thieves Emily Post, and thieves in state; Thigh I can not move a thigh, Thin Barren or fertile, rich or thin and poor, Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. Thine Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, With lips that to thine own lips burn, But in thine arms, Myrrhiline, Thine eyes were at the avatar Thine eyes were old when God was born, Valerian, thine eyes were sick Thine eyes were stricken when they saw Thine eyes, Valerian, are full Valerian! Thine eyes are filled Valerian! Thine eyes are old Valerian! Thine eyes shall shut, Of thine eyes holdeth me. Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? And the form that it covers is thine. Take, or the taking never will be thine; Thing My mind with longings for some ancient thing, Some thing I find not though I ever seek. And every sound a thing of lyric joy. And of that thing there came to me a fear Not a thing disputed the lordly worm Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. And of that thing swept over me a fear No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; Neither thing will walk again. I am the master of each living thing, Things see also Bat-Things That murmur of things that wane, Thou art loveliest of the things I know; Dearest of all dear things that I possess. Rest, with the dear things lying Unbodied things hold silent sway All things that thou dost love, All things that thou wouldst know. I weary of the old monotony of things; All men, all things, all hopes, my burning dreams of fire; Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, Phantasmal things of beauty and of death, To paint the things I never shall relate. And pass, as all things pass, deeming the dumb The death of pale-green bloated things. The things that mirthful wizards killed 015.25 142.5 054.5 069.6 078.14 004.6 004.77 004.80 030.5 030.9 030.13 030.21 030.25 030.45 030.49 030.53 032.2 043.20 043.36 097.6 027.10 027.11 028.4 029.9 057.11 074.8 090.9 093.3 105.14 106.1 107.6 126.16 133.2 001.10 004.40 008.8 009.3 010.10 012.41 012.42 013.1 013.6 025.7 025.10 025.14 026.3 030.12 030.47 T I searched the years that hold all things immortal I watched on earth the littler things around; I will not find it till all things shall cease, All things died in my black might, For all things die, but they die most regretful That flowered not, and all things weep to die, Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, And the slimy things of the slimy dead They are curious things that hide in the woods Murmur of all things that wane, All things that you might love, All things that you would know. Where all things are, yet are not; time and space Impalpable, a brain-shaped thing of dread, But all the strange and withered things still hung And all strange things once covered by the sea Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, Now no things interest me, Things of small worth to me. Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, With all things disagree, I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, I am the night and the garden and all things swoon All things are symbols of eternal death— And awful things were lying all around— Upon all things of life and time and space; Where Death in death all things did not immerse. All things their form reveal, And fair things yet more fair, These are the things I love you for: the gray You move: the unexpected things you say; These things I love, yet words can never tell For things external, but of higher worth, For you have taught a thousand things to me, That says, These things shall be, and they are so: With the breath of the web-faced things asleep The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten And other such-like things as that is Are things that never ought to bore ’em. None of these things can bother me Restoring all things lost and small things broken. Thing’s Anguish of some lost thing’s cry or call Think Or think that those sweet words were meant to be And think the words they drop are jewels. For surely none would think of spurning Thinking Drink! For the pleasure, forget sad thinking! Deep loving, dark thinking, 389 036.17 036.44 036.58 046.7 051.15 051.16 051.54 057.9 062.1 063.10 067.41 067.42 070.11 088.3 093.11 095.3 096.1 096.3 096.18 096.55 096.63 096.67 096.68 101.3 102.5 104.2 107.2 107.8 109.18 109.23 114.1 114.5 114.9 116.10 120.10 122.6 125.3 129.14 137.15 137.22 142.9 147.12 045.10 121.4 138.2 138.37 098.5 123.14 390 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Thinks And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. Thinned Like the rows of poppies scattered and thinned, Like foam in a tempest scattered and thinned Thirsting Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, This For this I offer thee: Oh Poet, this I offer thee, I turn to this, Then, on this paper now so blank and white, For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, And after this, there came to me one green And still for this one dream all else forsaking I know this all I ever will be knowing: Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, This hill, haunted by a deathly spell, Of those who came to praise this day Nor ever have; and since this mortal bond Then live! Live in this dual love, partake What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? To this he gives his only adoration, Make this your home for I will make it yours; Of this fresh pool of thin and brilliant blue. This being’s face is soft, he shall not pass; This never ending night of mounting pain, In all this hideous land the only soul. Now they have buried me in this dark pit, And after this, there came to me one green When of this pastime tiring. Enchantment grows in this soft after-nightfall noon, Now they have buried me in this dark pit, I am awed, O Love, at knowing this mystery, To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; Differed so, each from each, and this one more Though this were Paradise, and Paradise Now wherefor do you make this larger room Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping This do I want. I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, I come, weary yet bearing still this load. This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Upon my tomb, this legend bold: And in this pedagogic cloister, If this were done to Minnesota, Thorns With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? Those Within those precincts of the spectral night’s I peered amid those waters black and still. What forms were those that through the forest sleeping 129.8 001.11 063.11 092.13 012.45 012.50 016.2 025.5 028.11 029.1 036.59 036.63 043.1 045.6 049.3 050.11 051.29 059.9 068.13 077.10 078.14 082.2 084.13 085.6 087.1 090.1 096.33 096.89 103.1 110.5 111.10 115.7 115.9 118.9 119.1 119.4 123.20 124.1 124.8 129.1 137.26 138.23 138.35 026.8 011.15 011.21 015.17 T From all the hate of all those bitter scars. Itself from horror at those eyes’ blind sheen. The scattered symbols of those closing pages Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, In those mysterious lands and alien places Her face is sweeter than those fabled places Moon, if moon-made they, those drifting shapes From the stricken hosts of those plague-filled coasts Of those who came to praise this day Of those the days before the quest. As I went onward toward those upper lairs. The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Those glittering swords that shone like splintered glass, Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, And from those giant caverns’ lifted gloom Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; To all the world; and dearer still are those To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Thou Thou shalt die, So shalt thou thy beauty lend And thou shalt go; Thou shalt lie. Thou art beautiful, Myrrhiline, Thou art loveliest of the things I know; But even thou, Oh Myrrhiline, When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, Thou art as lovely as that ancient queen As thou hast never known; All things that thou dost love, All things that thou wouldst know. Hast thou forgot And thou hast known the azure mist Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, Art thou only a phantom before me, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Drink deep the cup, ere thou canst drink no more; Nor that thou roll away the mountain boulders Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Though Though we die. 391 024.8 029.8 036.35 036.39 036.45 041.3 045.14 048.1 049.3 049.16 074.4 079.7 082.6 086.6 094.7 099.12 105.6 117.5 119.14 121.4 004.1 004.12 004.15 004.24 004.39 004.40 004.41 005.1 005.5 007.53 008.9 012.2 012.41 012.42 012.46 030.17 043.1 043.11 043.25 043.26 043.27 097.2 124.10 124.12 003.40 392 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Though nothing visible is there The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture Some thing I find not though I ever seek. Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, What though you walk by Mammon unattended, What though one kingdom each of you forsake, I could not move though mind and spirit broke. And I, though struggling, in that selfsame hour And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, Though singly impotent, might be in mass I could not turn though fronted by the rack. Though they, with cruel joy, had given me Though they who tortured me were far behind, Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. I struggled onward though my strength was spent Me hope. I fell, though flesh itself be rent Caresses, though I find slight joy in amorous Though none is lovelier Though all my days were added one by one, Though every day were filled with benison Though every hour were rich with a great store Though this were Paradise, and Paradise And waited, wondered, though I did not know... The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten And though all poppy seeds in final chaos scatter, Though I know that you are pretty, Thought And find that what I thought so great is but Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, To be, I thought to find in nearer faces I thought I heard the eerie One thought more torturing usurped my brain, A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; I thought ironic laughter passed me by. The years since Time began, the sum of thought, Contained no thought or dust of thing or race; That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, Thoughts Our thoughts will be more sad than death is Do light thoughts in a light heart dwell, He had dreams and thoughts of just She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. Thousand For many a thousand leagues around 010.6 014.35 015.11 027.11 046.47 050.5 051.1 051.31 072.14 076.12 077.11 079.9 082.7 083.10 084.12 085.9 087.4 091.3 091.7 096.11 096.51 115.1 115.3 115.5 115.9 122.8 129.14 134.22 135.4 016.3 036.14 036.47 045.9 084.10 084.11 085.8 102.17 107.6 112.16 116.7 128.3 039.4 042.7 046.15 128.27 128.28 010.9 T A thousand and a thousand years ago, What did it matter a thousand years ago What will it matter a thousand years from now A thousand million years ago, Since ten thousand years ago. A thousand and a thousand years ago, Of lunar sorcerers; a thousand hells Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee A thousand and a thousand years have fled; For you have taught a thousand things to me, To forty thousand species, Woman Thrall Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, Threads The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Three The three Thrice Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, Thrill Never again will a dead girl thrill Throat From a nightingale’s golden throat, A passionate burst of song from a golden throat, A golden throat, a golden song that fail— From a meadowlark’s passionate throat, Throbbing They clamped hot irons on my throbbing head; Throne On a purple throne. There lived and there ruled on a crumbling throne I came upon a curious great throne On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines Thrones My thrones, majestical, imperial, and great, It reigned on its multiple thrones. My thrones majestical, imperial, and great Throng Beyond the heavens’ great celestial throng, “Greetings!” I cried but in the throng Of caravans that throng Wherein a cloudlike throng Through With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, Through lone Rose and fell and rose through all the Lesbian night; What forms were those that through the forest sleeping Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, Through its valleys and its mountains Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Through them and over them—what shall be found Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Swimming through Atlantis doomed; Let one long, lingering note through night come stealing, When I felt through me spread the germ And wriggle through my gray 393 012.40 026.1 026.5 030.38 047.10 067.40 080.7 095.7 099.7 120.10 140.9 061.7 116.6 053.14 068.1 004.66 001.4 021.1 021.7 063.4 084.1 046.32 057.2 076.3 125.19 012.15 057.20 067.15 024.2 049.17 096.93 109.35 001.2 002.29 007.6 015.17 015.26 033.1 036.11 036.62 037.2 038.3 043.16 047.28 051.61 054.26 054.31 394 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, Through the still, sleeping glade She will move through the moveless shade I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule The mouth where something dark was trickling through. The swart hand crawled, through mid-air lengthening, Through mighty chambers, hunted and alone, That clove through midnight where no other stirred, Their mirthless muttering through the palace rang. With formless terrors running through my mind? Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, And when at last my captors bore me through That followed through the chamber where I fled. Foul nightmare creatures peering through the air: And through the riven air, there harshly swept A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, And through its darkened window see no sky: Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; Throughout Throughout the sculptors’ workshop, uncomplete Thrust And overlook the underlying thrust, Thrusting The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, Rose-pink, and outward thrusting from each bare Thunder I hear them over thunder, and at midnight gloom; Thus Thus I close my doors Till thus, from incantation and invoking, If I thus forgot to meet Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Thus am I sad. Thus am I weary. Thus am I old. Shrieking, thus to settle whose And thus preserved her innocence. Thy Thy lips that in the midnight burn, Thy body fevered with love’s desire, Thy breasts that seek delight in fire, So shalt thou thy beauty lend Yea, thy lips that softly smile, Thy cheeks that glow, Thy lovely face uplifted now, The scented hair above thy brow, Thy body now so passionate 057.14 063.2 065.5 065.7 070.10 071.8 071.10 073.8 074.10 076.2 079.5 081.8 083.4 086.6 086.12 088.6 104.4 105.10 111.7 112.5 118.2 120.6 124.5 092.2 121.3 086.10 092.5 131.10 052.7 068.8 100.7 117.12 123.5 123.10 123.15 126.11 128.40 004.5 004.7 004.8 004.12 004.16 004.17 004.18 004.19 004.21 T And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking Thy terrible lust, When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, Intoxicated with thy loveliness, Thy rotten breath Await thy kingly head. The face that haunts thy memory? Thy one Beloved, fair and sweet, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! Thy purple eyes, Valerian, Thy purple haunted eyes are mad And once thy purple eyes went blind Thy face is aureoled The beauty of thy features, Naught by thy loveliness I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Love, ere thy lips dead lips alone adore. Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, And for thy bread, than my bread more sustaining, I seek through chambers of thy strange abode; Tide That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, Tides see also Sea-Tides Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, Tides around Atlantis sweep, Laughing, she flashes down the shifting tides of green, They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; I heard alone the surging tides in motion. Tiger-Lily A tiger-lily opens and fails and closes Till Till her body be mine. Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Till she lie in ecstasy knowing and desiring her sisterhood; Till the dawn. Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, 395 004.73 005.1 005.2 005.5 008.1 012.8 012.16 012.47 012.51 012.53 030.1 030.30 030.41 032.3 032.5 032.9 043.2 043.3 043.28 097.3 097.4 097.5 097.7 124.2 124.3 124.4 124.5 060.9 036.22 047.32 060.1 084.6 094.14 101.14 003.12 003.23 003.29 003.30 003.36 006.7 006.23 007.14 007.34 396 Time A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; I will not find it till all things shall cease, Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled Till beauty into perfect beauty swoons; Till darkness falls—it never will— Till at last, in her caverned halls Till the coming of dawn. Till thus, from incantation and invoking, Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. Till memory slowly came, and knowledge grew, I watched them till, from out the greater dark, I knocked upon the portal till with clang They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; They crushed me, broke me till I could not rise, Burn incense till the fragrant air is odorous, Till jasmine, oleander, or full roses’ bloom Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer Till softly falls away Withdraw till dawn comes gray. Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Till Nature teems Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true Till acids of experience undeceive Till I end Till a quarter of twelve, Till with derrick they capped him, To Death and Time. Prisoned here in time for evermore remembered, Till senses reeled, and time and reason fled, But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, The sands of time are thick, the days march slow; And the tired day; All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten When time had ceased, when every world was riven, Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Time has tolled a solemn knell, That has no counterpart in lands of time But now that time is gone of yore In all the years by time begun, In a fabulous land, in a fabulous time, The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; Where all things are, yet are not; time and space In that far, future time where I was fleeing Oh little creature, lost in time and space, The years since Time began, the sum of thought, Upon all things of life and time and space; 015.6 036.58 048.19 051.53 055.17 060.21 065.20 068.8 069.7 070.14 073.4 074.9 081.1 084.5 084.7 096.25 096.26 096.77 096.81 096.84 098.8 109.24 113.8 121.8 133.45 143.2 145.3 004.13 006.19 007.34 007.41 007.46 009.6 013.21 024.6 036.7 036.37 037.2 047.39 053.3 054.51 055.6 057.1 059.14 070.11 076.1 077.1 102.17 107.2 T We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping Is dreamland, out of Space and out of Time. Of sleepy hours that time and plenty send; She is new each time that their contents grow, lesser, and lesser. When death has been captured and time overtaken, I am instant lost in time, Quote scholars dead in Alfred’s time, “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” When death has been captured and time overtaken, Time-Gulfs From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Timeless I sought it in far lands of timeless travel Her timeless vision staring still Of all my timeless lands, Of unknown timeless land; Times Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, I’ll talk of future times and alien shores. For the times that are over, Time’s see Pre-Time’s Tinge I was the first to tinge his pen; Tinkle Rich ends, and soft the tinkle of a camel’s bell Tints Felt flesh dissolve in motes of silver tints Tip Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet Tipped The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, Tips see also Finger-Tips The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, Tire Of man I tire. Tired And when in closer human haunts I tired, Tiring Of days and nights that are an old and tiring story, When of this pastime tiring. Titan A metal titan shapen like a cone, Titans And when I saw these titans, thereupon To see also Soon-to-be-Forgotten To their tomb. The gifts of my body I bring to a flesh-white and beautiful palace, We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking And all the long night her body to mine I shall press; To dust and ash will turn. To Death and Time. All to death must go. Life is the gift to a slave. Let us give over ourselves to delight, To a silent lute. With lips that to thine own lips burn, 397 112.11 113.14 115.4 129.12 130.11 133.51 138.11 139.5 141.11 130.16 141.16 036.1 055.19 067.19 134.3 068.1 077.12 123.7 046.2 096.95 076.13 092.6 096.44 091.11 092.13 133.19 036.55 096.5 096.33 076.6 081.11 002.16 003.5 003.15 003.19 003.26 004.9 004.13 004.20 004.38 004.51 004.67 004.77 398 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Freeing them to follow passion’s sorcery. Can escape to tell of muted grief. Beckoning to rites forgotten long ago: Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. The hymn and song have changed to moan and cry. That fell, all Mandrikor to kill. To any save themselves alone, For none are left the tale to tell. Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths For thee to reign. I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; And I am sick to death with utter weariness He strove to bring a light. To read the tale of star and sun, For he has passed from stage to stage, To solve one dark, strange riddle, a sage Nymphs to play. As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture The loveliest girl to give him strange delight; To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing And still to flushed and heated faces burning, And body to body, drunken forms were swaying I turn to this, He seeks to allay the old desire, With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. A wine-red toast to the health of the host— To the host! Clink! Clink! Let the glasses chink! A form that clings to a satyr sings, That I to cosmic realms could take my flight! To paint the things I never shall relate. To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, Her body and her rose-red lips to mine, That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy And after this, there came to me one green And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; And of that thing there came to me a fear So great, I clawed my face to bleeding strips, And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. To see the Hylots of Calair, To watch a little creature pick That brought to Mirtylon its doom, To the star that is fairest; Except to blind you;— Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers 006.8 006.12 006.16 006.21 007.31 007.40 007.44 010.16 010.23 010.24 011.2 011.22 012.6 013.13 013.27 014.3 014.18 014.32 014.33 015.8 015.11 015.12 015.20 015.23 015.29 015.39 016.2 018.10 019.1 020.4 022.3 022.9 023.5 025.4 025.14 026.10 027.6 028.5 029.1 029.6 029.9 029.10 029.11 030.14 030.15 030.18 033.12 033.38 034.4 T With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; And left her lovely body to oblivion; We left no mark to show her grave, We left her only to the waiting earth that gave To seek some image far behind some portal In constellations now to space-dust shrunken And farther still when life was yet to come, To be, I thought to find in nearer faces To be, I thought to find in nearer faces To perish when my later footsteps came; And longer ways before you yet to wander And incubi avidly waiting to take You will come back to me, You will come back to me, lost lover, Come back, come back to me, Upon her to bestow; To worship where she goes. So little, yet to do so well, To capture moods that change or leave; Thou hast given me passion, desire, and flame; thou hast brought me this feverous love to consume me, I have riven all darkness to find thee. Was it only for darkness to blind me, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume and increase and devour alone? Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? I was the first to tinge his pen; Yet we like a woman came to cloy. I am the colour yet to be; Inferno, to the waves Of those who came to praise this day Or purple, dear to children of the dust, And into more than light, to something wholly Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, That flowered not, and all things weep to die, And they who merely lived are first to sigh: And to no futile dream of death aspires, In sunlight splendid meadows to awake. With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, To fulness in the drowsy summer noons, There are no eyes to see, No voice to tell of days that were, No ears to hear her footsteps die away. To coffin. earth, the dead. I only sighed to feel them play 399 035.2 035.6 035.9 035.11 036.19 036.23 036.26 036.47 036.47 036.52 037.9 038.7 039.2 039.7 039.20 041.2 041.8 042.10 042.11 043.1 043.5 043.7 043.15 043.27 043.28 043.31 046.2 046.38 046.42 048.14 049.3 051.2 051.11 051.13 051.16 051.18 051.20 051.35 051.46 051.51 053.11 053.12 053.13 054.11 054.30 400 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei In ecstasy to reap The harvest, and to revel deep I now have ceased to bloat; Worms now have ceased to gloat, Or in my dead flesh foul to float, And rotten to the very core, Shadowy night and the world to cross— Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? Shadowy night and the world to cross— Never a light to mark the trail Shadowy night and the world to cross— Why do the mandrakes fear to die? Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, She has yielded to the kiss of night, Some arrowed beast crept to its hillside fastness? Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves To capture an errant eel From dawn to dusk her white sides feel To capture a breast, to hold the hair And sinks to sleep in a sounding shell. To her tryst she will go in the night, Of the woods to a spot forlorn, And softly rises to rejoice in dawn; She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids For you to reign. I still have far to go, it’s late. Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, He turns, and now returns to unheard choral To this he gives his only adoration, And slowly paces to an inner hall, Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; Across a purple ground to purple cliffs With wings of beating purple flew to me And when my steed permitted me to light, I seemed to sink in some huge cosmic pool. As of some ancient corpse about to speak.... My own the lineaments that seemed to be Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, That streamed to join the nothingness beyond. And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face I can not find, nor do I seem to place Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. To fall amid colossal precipices. That beat the air to frenzy, dirges, knells. I begged the gods to save me from such pain. Then beating to the chambers of my brain Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang To seek, beneath the flower-heads, a path. Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; 054.37 054.38 054.42 054.43 054.44 054.50 056.1 056.4 056.5 056.6 056.9 056.12 057.14 058.1 059.10 060.8 060.15 060.17 060.19 060.24 065.3 065.6 066.2 066.3 067.6 067.52 068.2 068.6 068.13 069.10 070.7 071.2 071.7 071.12 071.13 072.13 073.6 075.10 076.14 077.4 077.5 077.8 079.14 080.2 080.10 080.12 081.5 082.10 083.2 T And so I slowly raise the shade to greet They added madness to my frantic cries Now was I destined after all to die, I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? To reach the haven I would never find. Back through the desert for those fiends to flay, To burn, to break; their pleasure not to slay But punish, since their power I dared to test. To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Nowhere to flee, however I might strive, That swiftly toward me now began to fall, To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, And stood tremendous to my caverned room, From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, And after this, there came to me one green So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, To every branch. The tree had long since died, Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried Things of small worth to me. And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, To love’s sad paradise. Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, Till evetide falls, and the Muezzin call to prayer The roads to distant marts; and Allah’s blessed foretell To heart’s desire that only I and Allah know, No voice remains to tell me where she lies, If I thus forgot to meet Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, They know that it will take me years to die, How much more exquisite to hear me cry They left to me my eyes, so I could stare To keep me company lest I go mad: As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; And footsteps seem to pass I am awed that the moon and stars are so close to me. With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. To birth the song that all the spheres are singing? Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; With weary steps to the old, original end. Content to know the image of the dream, The subtle pleasure that you give to me, 401 083.11 084.3 085.1 085.2 085.12 086.6 086.7 086.8 087.12 088.8 088.11 088.13 089.9 089.10 089.13 090.1 090.10 090.11 093.10 093.12 096.18 096.28 096.42 096.58 096.77 096.94 096.100 099.9 100.7 102.2 103.3 103.6 103.9 103.12 104.13 106.6 109.11 110.6 110.8 110.12 111.8 111.10 111.12 112.4 112.9 112.10 112.12 113.11 114.10 402 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Yet would it be no Eden to entice. I love you for the charm earth gave to you, And more for beauty, only known to me. Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways To all the world; and dearer still are those Your imperfections are as fair to me There will be none with you to help you share it, A counterpart of what is still to be? Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom You will become? It seems so strange to me That you make these to that a sacrifice, To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, I come to men with unrequiting passion, Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? To those that bless, and by my charm, are blessed. I am not sorry to have been your lover, For you have taught a thousand things to me, Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Of recognition, nor was I to stay Doubting, I stumble blindly to thy feet, And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; Nor that thou give my sightless eyes to see, Shrieking, thus to settle whose To ponder old, unsated malices. She liked to don herself in raiment She loved to play a dangerous game And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, The midst of her things: a girdle, as though to chasten When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, To play God, Building on to what goal later, To poppy legend olden. The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom You have never been inspiring to my pen. Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; We listened to the strange rain We listened to these strange tall dreams And to the students in my classes, I’m quite as good as ears to asses; Or any other words to jar ’em; I offer to my students gratis, For they are life and love to me, Are things that never ought to bore ’em. They also ought to know their Caesar, “Oh hail to thee, and et to Brute; That murmur to their sad-eyed pupils. To prove the brilliance of their wits, To illustrate their attitudes, 115.11 116.9 116.14 117.1 117.5 117.9 118.3 118.10 118.11 118.12 118.13 119.6 119.9 119.11 119.14 120.9 120.10 121.4 122.4 124.2 124.11 124.12 126.11 127.15 128.5 128.13 129.8 129.10 129.14 130.7 133.17 133.62 134.18 134.23 135.6 135.9 136.1 136.9 137.7 137.8 137.12 137.16 137.17 137.22 137.23 137.27 138.4 138.10 138.16 T And wonder what we’re conning to. If this were done to Minnesota, Why, there each young M.A. would go to, School to teach seduction; And asked to go to Hades. To forty thousand species, Woman Mobbed him to induce him; They paid him to seduce ’em! When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, Finding that life from end to end There always was farther to go. Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Evening to night, and night to afterglow, Toast A wine-red toast to the health of the host— Toil What shall reward the delver’s toil Token My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. For you were token. Told The tale is told of years of long ago. Should love be told in brede or breve? By forgotten poets told. But the musty tale can never be told What they are told, the falseness never find Heard legends not by earthly voices told, Tolled Time has tolled a solemn knell, Tolling A tolling like a myriad decibels All night I heard the tolling of a bell; The tolling came like measures for a spell. Tomb see also Sea-Tomb To their tomb. Never will mortal outlive the tomb— Fermented in a wizard’s tomb. And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, In my tomb beneath the ground, Arabesques on a tomb. The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. And life less like a tomb. Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. An empress regnant in an empty tomb— Upon my tomb, this legend bold: Tomblike The desolation tomblike, sere, Tombs Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Tomorrow Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, Tone Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone Tones The listening ear; its tones are softly heard Tongs As I remember, there were flaming tongs Tongue An unknown golden tongue where every word That tongue hath no harsh syllable to annoy 403 138.18 138.35 138.36 140.2 140.8 140.9 140.10 140.12 141.7 142.7 144.5 146.7 147.13 022.3 038.11 120.8 132.6 007.48 042.14 047.15 057.21 121.7 122.11 047.39 080.3 094.1 094.8 002.16 004.37 030.20 036.10 054.17 065.12 081.14 096.30 116.8 127.18 137.26 010.18 134.4 134.10 076.7 028.6 080.5 028.2 028.5 404 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, And then I felt a tongue or talon stroke Tongueless A thought my tongueless mouth could never speak; Tongues Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old Tongue’s Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies Tonight Then let us love tonight, The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; Too That love and passion weary all too soon. And end, there too I sought. But we turned too late and we knew our fate Is too exacting for man’s magistry,— Though they are broken too, and their flesh slit. I too was fastened on that tree of death. Sing, for too soon, too long, thy mouth shall know no singing. Joys that pass and youth too fleet, Of lips too tender; your precise array. Not too malicious; the strangeness of Harry Clarke’s Poe;129.7 Took I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; From each of us he took his joy, The primrose path she rarely took Top Then at the top I stood on magic squares Topless And blazed in beauty, deep on topless deep, From towers topless as the realms of sleep Torment My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, Love’s beauty and love’s torment and love’s fever-kisses, Her flesh a torment, her body a rapturous ache The answer came, where I in torment lay, Tormented Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, Torn I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Torso The naked torso of a goddess glowing Torture With torture on their burning spits. Tortured Though they who tortured me were far behind, Tortures Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Torturing One thought more torturing usurped my brain, Toss The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— Total What total purpose wrought such total doom; Tottered And tottered in a spreading pool of blood; Touches There touches his body lightly a shiver, Toward Her bow toward the cleaner west Toward the sea. Or hunters canter shouting toward the moor. As I went onward toward those upper lairs. 072.11 077.11 089.13 104.11 084.11 039.16 054.24 028.10 004.49 061.1 007.16 036.16 048.3 050.12 087.4 093.14 097.5 100.5 114.8 013.13 046.37 128.21 074.5 034.11 069.3 007.5 007.13 007.21 019.3 080.13 045.7 133.23 092.4 030.48 085.9 086.4 084.10 056.11 036.12 106.2 018.5 048.18 066.16 069.8 074.4 T Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept I saw the hungry flowers toward me crawl A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, That swiftly toward me now began to fall, It lifted toward its dark, devouring lips. Swart talons toward the ruby turn, Towers From towers topless as the realms of sleep The magic towers, the skyward thrusting spires, Town For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! Towns The names of all the Roman towns; Trace With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, She will halt where the moonrays trace Changing and new, so hard to know, to trace. Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Of death itself, there now was left no trace, Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace Tracery Beyond the window’s tracery Traces Where I entered the traces Track By forest track Trackless Through trackless labyrinths more dark and deep, Tracks With the fresher tracks of cloven Traded Live riotously, ere thy life for death be traded, Trail I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; Never a light to mark the trail My bloodprints in the dead sand marked my trail. Trailed Trailed countless fingers in the ebon edge On bridges, river trails, on every gentle breeze. Transcendent And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, Transitory Or from transitory Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, Trap A beak that, darting, closed me in its trap. Trapped Trapped in a crevice by great settling boulders. Travel I sought it in far lands of timeless travel As you begin your final travel, know Traveled And traveled backward past the age of man Traveler No traveler crosses now the land, A lonely traveler on another star; Traveler: I scorn you, Death, Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Ah Traveler, scorn me not 405 078.5 082.12 083.1 085.7 088.13 091.14 125.11 069.3 086.10 022.11 137.4 025.9 036.38 065.11 077.8 104.3 107.3 114.6 055.1 033.15 061.2 036.62 126.14 097.3 036.36 056.6 085.10 011.13 131.4 034.14 033.31 096.1 075.14 059.4 036.1 146.2 036.18 010.17 014.11 067.7 067.11 067.17 067.26 067.27 067.43 067.44 406 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei All past and future. Traveler, stay! Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— Traveler: Not soon for I must find a song— Traveler’s And faintly comes the echo of a traveler’s song, Travelled My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze Have travelled lands Hesperian, Traveller The lands no traveller ever found on earth; The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, Travels And yet, in all my travels I could only find Traversed Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, Tread And never footsteps tread the ground. Treasure Treasure outlasting cities fair but fleeting. But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? Such a treasure? I’d be missing Tree And cower behind the black tree boles No moving thing, no blade of grass. One tree To every branch. The tree had long since died, I too was fastened on that tree of death. Bright jewels on the knowledge tree. Trees Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, And the trees are bare Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, I hear a moaning in the dreamless trees; With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; Where the trees form a little dark room: There, ringed with dark trees holy, Trees solemn and soundless and tall The trees, the birds, the fleeting springs, the years, Along the summit island lanes of shrubs and trees; Treetops Over the treetops, under the boughs, Tremble I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Tremble upon the scented air of night, That tremble and fall in tide on foaming tide, Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? The little gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods then will tremble and waken Trembling Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; Tremendous Tremendous fingers, growing, strengthening, And stood tremendous to my caverned room, 067.50 067.51 067.54 067.56 096.92 013.19 030.3 116.12 134.13 013.15 079.9 010.12 051.42 096.17 100.4 062.2 093.3 093.10 093.14 137.18 001.9 002.5 011.2 015.42 035.2 051.50 061.1 065.10 065.17 065.21 102.10 131.2 062.8 003.29 015.10 060.9 083.3 101.12 130.9 141.9 018.6 074.12 089.10 T Tremors Tremors across his white flesh pass. Tremulous Petals tremulous with dew at dawn Tresses I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, Tribute At her feet I have laid the tribute of a burning intolerable passion, Was the tribute then given in vain? Trick And naked lay the true design, the trick. Trickle Unto my feet a little trickle crept Trickling The mouth where something dark was trickling through. Tried Burst; mindless, mewing as it tried to speak, I tried to scream but heard no sound, no hoarse, Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried Triumph I am the triumph of all-seeing eye, Triumphal A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. Triumphant As we, triumphant, strode along, Trodden Trembling, he moans on the trodden grass; Tropic And stifling tropic heat; Troy Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; The lips of her of Troy, The lips of Egypt, Troy, Trysting For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, True Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true My mind, not heart, is now my soul’s true token. And naked lay the true design, the trick. The true believer makes his own faith all along Trunk From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, Away; the specters by the gnarled trunk muttered Of knotty burls along the trunk, and clung Trunks Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, Trust Of Venus’s trust, Or gilded idols undeserving trust, I am a fool, for only fools would trust From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe No hope, no faith, no fear, no trust remaining Truth Believed no truth except what pleased her; Truths And truths I could not otherwise discover. Trying Each step eternal, on I struggled, trying Tryst To her tryst she will go in the night, I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; Tuft A tuft of slender tentacles, a crest Tumbled The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. Tumbles Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Tumescent Tumescent orchids swart with hair. 407 018.8 004.58 003.1 020.1 003.21 043.18 121.12 078.1 073.8 075.10 088.8 093.12 133.53 007.32 049.19 018.6 048.10 008.10 012.31 067.31 019.7 096.83 113.8 120.8 121.12 134.20 045.2 045.19 093.9 011.8 091.9 005.4 051.4 121.1 121.6 124.6 128.30 120.12 085.11 065.3 101.6 092.9 128.24 062.4 030.16 408 Tune Turn A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; To dust and ash will turn. I dreamed the night would never turn to day. DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! I turn to this, Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! I could not turn though fronted by the rack. I turn away from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, Swart talons toward the ruby turn, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, However brief or stilled, or borne on farther turn, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, Turned And turned to flee that corpse’s hideous head. And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, We turned and set forth once more, But we turned too late and we knew our fate Aside. The flow turned toward me, and it kept Of revelers turned statue, and no more So great I turned and clawed my hands to bone I turned on stealthy step lest something hear me. Turning Dawn breaks abroad; then happily she dances, turning Turns He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Turtle And it only rhymes with turtle...... Tut-tut “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” Twelve Till a quarter of twelve, It’s a quarter of twelve, Twice Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Twilight Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, The twilight brought no ease from the hot While over us the wind at twilight soughs, Twilight’s Or twilight’s fall Twin Beneath twin moons of livid red. Twined see also Branch-Twined Yet twined around me with inhuman force. Twining Deep stems twining around the mandrake, Twist And twist their sinuous downward course— Twisted There where the gnarled limbs twisted Two Two loves, two deaths, two flameless fires, ashen, Quick to my side two black, sleek leopards sprang I saw it then, two trunks that fused as one, My lady hath two lovely lips, Life is a dream between two deaths; a blind Tyre As we strode the streets of Tyre As we strode down the streets of Tyre. 105.6 004.9 007.40 012.11 016.2 037.13 067.11 083.10 096.19 125.11 130.7 134.14 141.7 029.11 034.16 048.2 048.3 078.5 081.7 090.10 092.11 066.15 068.6 135.11 139.10 143.2 143.10 117.12 015.1 048.13 147.3 143.5 030.36 074.14 038.5 038.10 045.1 051.24 081.5 091.9 100.1 102.1 049.1 049.7 U Unassuaged But fulness leaves no unassuaged desires, Unattaining I bow beneath this fruitless unattaining, Unattended What though you walk by Mammon unattended, Unbodied Unbodied things hold silent sway Unborn Blessed be the unborn for they shall be dead. Unbound The garlands from their brows unbound Unbroken In bond unbroken, Unceasing Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Uncertain Like me uncertain of their final fate Unchanging We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, Unclothe Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Uncomplete Throughout the sculptors’ workshop, uncomplete Uncover Then flesh and spirit, unceasing springs, uncover— Undaunted Abyssal pilgrimage undaunted, strong Undeceive Till acids of experience undeceive Under Under the grass? Under the grass. Over the treetops, under the boughs, Say, sixty-five, not one day under, Underlying And overlook the underlying thrust, Underneath And underneath the shroud of gloom Progressing slowly underneath the door Undeserving Or gilded idols undeserving trust, Undone And certainty, by doubt and change, undone, Undreamed-Of I am enraptured by strange and undreamed-of passionate sinful 051.19 124.1 051.1 010.10 108.3 049.12 132.4 051.26 087.3 112.15 096.35 092.2 051.26 024.7 121.8 038.4 038.16 062.8 138.32 121.3 010.14 078.2 051.4 050.8 410 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei caresses Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies Unearthly Stared at my own dead eyes unearthly lit. Unended It is the ceaseless song that love began; unended, Unending Holds me till in unending dooms I smother. Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. Unexpected You move: the unexpected things you say; Unfathomed A chant to loveliness and strange, unfathomed glory, Unfetter When post-historic revels will unfetter them, When post-historic revels will unfetter them, Unforgetful And of no emptiness is unforgetful. Unforgotten And unforgotten nights Unfounded And scandal, better if unfounded. Unfurled Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Ungovernable Of a passion swayed not by reason, a passion ungovernable, mad; Unheard He turns, and now returns to unheard choral Unholy Lighting swamps and tarns unholy Unhuman Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace Unison To make the unison of this half-heard overtone; United Then all the seas united with a roar Unity Becomes that single soul, the unity beholden Universe Nothing in all the universe is left for me, I watched the universe grow cold and chill; Of all the stars and all the universe, And DOOM had fallen on the universe. We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, Universes Where other universes flow. Unknown For splendour unknown. Just presences, unseen, unknown To tell of pomp and splendour long unknown, 003.3 028.10 073.11 111.11 070.14 111.12 114.5 007.31 130.6 141.6 051.21 039.17 128.4 069.4 003.22 068.6 126.5 070.13 111.10 094.9 134.17 013.26 036.34 102.19 107.4 112.11 130.7 141.7 030.40 004.63 010.22 026.10 U An unknown golden tongue where every word Summoned from realms unknown to earthly dreamers Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, Whence came that unknown color? Was its source The unknown color hostile in pursuit For something unknown in the flamingly riotous masses And beauty yet unknown, Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. As the unknown force disposes Of unknown timeless land; Unless Unless in deeper love both are combined; Unmeaning Unmeaning march from nothingness to night, Unreadable With signs unreadable, on each the shard Unreal The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken Unrelieving I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; Unrequiting I come to men with unrequiting passion, Unreturning And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, Unsated To ponder old, unsated malices. Unseeing And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. Unseen Just presences, unseen, unknown An unseen step on the creeping moss— Like a creature unseen as it scurries and passes The head sprang high; but slashed by unseen sabers Unspoken Now in the mind come messages unspoken, Unsurcease Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease Until Until the last oblivion. Until your birthsite was become effaced. Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay, Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, Until I felt that tongue or talon stroke Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped Until I stumbled. Fear no longer lent Until, between Unto Yield his body unto dust, And beauty passed unto its final perfect beauty, And now I cry aloud unto the lonely spaces, Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, Unto the end I worship and adore; Unto my feet a little trickle crept For silence unto silence died away. 411 028.2 034.4 037.11 059.13 088.1 088.12 101.23 109.26 111.12 133.61 134.3 051.25 102.2 074.7 101.29 096.20 119.9 034.14 127.15 110.4 010.22 056.3 063.1 073.13 147.10 096.65 030.52 037.7 054.28 069.13 072.11 078.4 091.6 109.16 004.46 007.35 007.49 007.57 007.58 078.1 080.14 412 Untold Up A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Their secrets will remain untold see also Dried-Up You flare up in the all-consuming flame, I saw rise up a substance soft and white Floats up, and bathes the burning air still shimmering, Uplifted Thy lovely face uplifted now, Upon That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn Upon the ruined planet dwell Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, Tremble upon the scented air of night, Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging Of Time and Space, and strode upon his long Upon the moon, I’d show, strange things that moan, Upon a fruitless quest. Upon an endless path forever going Died upon birth. Upon her to bestow; Upon the whispering knoll. Watch upon the ruins gleaming Lies upon the dead drowned men. From flowers strown upon the ground Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, An eagerness; and pain upon his features Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, I came upon a curious great throne You drift upon the moonlight hovering near At length all motion ceased, upon a crag. I knocked upon the portal till with clang There’s one small shape that mews upon a spit; Save one upon a dais standing tall, Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, Upon it nevermore to leave. I tried Upon all things of life and time and space; Upon his fallen kingdoms, God had died. Upon the crimson eve, The footsteps pantherine upon the ground. Upon my tomb, this legend bold: They blandly sit upon their stools Upper As I went onward toward those upper lairs. Uprose Uprose gigantic in the endless gloom, Urgent Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force Urges Some impulse urges me to raise the shade; Urn That I am the deathless Greek upon an urn Urning Oh hearts encysted in supernal urning. Us Then let us love tonight, Let us have joy while we may; Let us give over ourselves to delight, 030.51 017.5 095.13 096.86 004.18 004.76 010.21 015.1 015.10 015.21 024.6 025.7 036.32 036.61 039.6 041.2 045.20 047.20 047.36 049.10 059.2 059.6 059.16 066.1 069.1 076.3 077.3 079.10 081.1 087.5 092.3 092.13 093.12 107.2 107.14 109.2 122.14 137.26 138.1 074.4 011.4 147.11 083.2 004.76 051.56 004.49 004.50 004.51 U Use Used Useless Usual Usurped Utmost Utter Uttered Let us forget the passing of years, Let us forget vain sorrow and tears For us the future never will come, So let us love, Myrrhiline, With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; From each of us he took his joy, Awaited us, sea-weary all, “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, How greatly you have guided us. We go Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. While over us the wind at twilight soughs, For the grape’s red juice there is just one use— Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies And learn the use of “ge” and “isdem.” As though sly Pan had used his pipes to capture A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, The chewed remains of something used for bait; Such dazzling stores of useless learning! I took the usual pleasures known to all mankind; One thought more torturing usurped my brain, He passed beyond the utmost realm of stars, And perished in the utmost cosmic tomb, From utmost regions of strange realms returning, We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, And I am sick to death with utter weariness That rose from out the gulfs of utter night, The pedants utter strange conceits Then dreamlikely they uttered 413 004.52 004.53 004.69 004.71 035.2 046.37 049.6 139.7 146.1 146.4 146.9 147.3 022.7 028.10 138.22 015.11 076.5 087.6 138.38 013.13 084.10 024.1 036.10 036.43 003.15 007.57 013.27 024.11 138.9 045.17 V Vacant The vacant spaces of the weary night; That drifts from the vacant meadows of the sea. Then only, from those vacant spaces driven, The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. In all the silences that haunt a vacant room. Vacua His realms were vacua, he proved his vow Vagaries Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. Vague I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain Remember phrases with a vague surprise Vaguely Her eyelids vaguely stir; Vain Let us forget vain sorrow and tears In vain for peace. I sought, but sought in vain. May sing of her are vain; Was the tribute then given in vain? The rush of waves that seek in vain Of nights that seemed eternities, of vain And all your days, and mine, a vain device. Vainly Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, In eerie borderlands I vainly waited I vainly seek. Vair My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Valerian Thy purple eyes, Valerian, Valerian, thine eyes were sick Thine eyes, Valerian, are full Valerian! Valerian! Valerian! Thine eyes are filled Valerian! Thine eyes are old Valerian! Thine eyes shall shut, Vales I saw the vales and mountains of the deep, Valley Down the far closure of the valley, sky, Valleys Through its valleys and its mountains Vampirish Vampirish beings of a stellar race, Vanished The vanished joy They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. No life or mind or trace of vanished lore, The vanished mists of time enshroud him, hide him; The vanished joy The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, Vanishing Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, 007.50 020.12 036.39 081.14 131.12 107.10 117.14 012.5 120.3 058.6 004.53 013.32 036.8 041.14 043.18 060.18 070.6 118.14 006.6 036.49 101.25 096.76 030.1 030.13 030.25 030.29 030.45 030.49 030.53 095.9 147.6 033.1 025.11 012.33 030.34 036.38 059.14 067.33 076.11 063.12 V Vassal The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage Vassalage The greatest riddle and though vassal claimed the vassalage Vast And brooded in that vast and soundless grove. I offer thee the vague, vast Hadean domain From the sweep of vast spaces With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, Winging your vast way lonely and alone I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, Laid bare the mystery of the vast sea-tomb, A city of a vast antiquity. Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; The air from some vast stellar carnage bled Its voice in one vast song Vaster Before a vaster deep beyond all thought, Vastness In alien land, by night’s resounding vastness? Vaults And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; Veil Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly Veiled see also Cypress-Veiled And veiled the shrieking shape in haze that had Veins My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. Of blue-red veins erect, a spiral swarm. Velvet Across a velvet sky. And when I came. Vengeance In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong Venomous A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. Venus I shall teach her the lore of Venus till all her sweet body tremble, Venus’s Of Venus’s trust, Vermeil My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Vermilion You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. Verse Quite to make it match in verse most anytime; Very And rotten to the very core, Like all his deeds, his very name unknown, The very mice absorb their wisdom, Vespertime Each vespertime, he wearies of the view Vestige And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And of its face no vestige could be seen, Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, Vesture Its superficial vesture whose arrays Vestures Her vestures; both were quite revealing. 415 014.35 014.35 011.6 012.5 033.13 034.7 037.3 067.5 071.8 079.1 081.10 094.6 095.6 105.1 105.6 106.12 109.34 036.14 059.12 130.14 141.14 043.33 106.13 007.5 007.24 092.10 071.4 024.3 101.13 003.29 005.4 096.76 017.16 135.9 054.50 059.13 138.21 069.9 029.5 090.5 107.13 117.3 128.36 416 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Vibrations That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing 076.8 Victims And all around their other victims wait, 087.2 View Each vespertime, he wearies of the view 069.9 The dark, walled city slowly came in view, 086.9 I love you for the realms of endless view, 116.11 Vigil Her vigil never will be done: 055.18 Vilely He leered so vilely, Horror could not save 029.7 Villanelle I promised you a villanelle, 042.1 I promised you a villanelle. 042.6 I promised you a villanelle. 042.12 I promised you a villanelle; 042.18 Vine Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; 015.22 Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! 023.2 Breast tip a vine; the striding legs for feet 092.6 Drink! For the night and the fruit of the vine! 098.4 Vintage With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! 022.10 Violet Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; 015.22 The rose and the violet bind her hair; 019.6 Of purple leagues, violet hippogriffs 071.6 Beyond the violet, within the red? 088.2 And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. 127.10 Vipers You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. 017.16 Virgin Hetaira, matron, virgin bringing 049.25 Virgins The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. 128.24 Virtue A paragon, except in virtue, 128.25 Virtues Or quite agree—it’s all the same; no virtues please 096.64 Virtuous “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 Visible Though nothing visible is there 010.6 Vision His vision, and he peered across the darkling sky 014.17 Their purple vision fade and die, 030.54 But the eyes have no vision, 033.33 And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, 034.14 Her timeless vision staring still 055.19 And in the fading vision of my sleep 095.12 That nothing exists but the vision, the thought supreme. 112.16 And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, 134.8 Visions With visions of the stellar pits, 030.46 Vital Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, 051.13 Voice Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes 001.1 Is the voice of Beauty that dies. 001.14 Out of oblivion, no voice will stir 026.9 But no voice shall speak again 047.33 No voice to tell of days that were, 053.12 Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! 083.9 No voice remains to tell me where she lies, 099.9 Its voice in one vast song 109.34 That saw her but heard neither her voice nor her laughter. 129.4 V Voiceless I hear them when no human voice is talking Earth and eternity. Is some voice calling? Like the voiceless cry Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, From metal monsters humming voiceless songs. Voices Maiden voices are mute; Of golden voices that will never speak; Of golden voices that again will speak; From somewhere in the distance voices fall and swell, And voices shake the night Heard legends not by earthly voices told, Void In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, Voluptuously Away, and listless hours voluptuously flaunting Vow And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests His realms were vacua, he proved his vow 417 131.3 147.7 001.5 006.22 080.4 004.65 012.34 067.34 096.91 109.15 122.11 036.30 096.74 014.6 014.7 107.10 W Wa Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile Wailing The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; Wait DEATH: Turn not, Oh Poet, wait! Will wait, alone. Death: Turn not, oh Traveler, wait! Death: However far you go, I wait. And all around their other victims wait, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The little gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, The monster gods wait in the heart of the mountains, Waited Where silence ruled yet something waited me In eerie borderlands I vainly waited My old companions waited all around: And waited, wondered, though I did not know... Waiting Passionlessly waiting till the spell shall be broken Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, In the breathless, waiting morn; We left her only to the waiting earth that gave And incubi avidly waiting to take It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long A venomous, waiting, and phallic orchid dozes. Stand waiting to perfume and powder and softly caress her, Waits Will watch while she waits on the stone; She waits the coming of the golden guest; And past Nirvana waits eternal vision, pure, Waken In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, The night grows dim and unreal and reeling: do I waken The little gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods then will tremble and waken Wakened That stir the wakened rose; In your steps on the wakened ways of earth Wakening There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Wakens She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids Waking The worlds of sleep and waking, Walk And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. What though you walk by Mammon unattended, Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; Neither thing will walk again. 096.82 061.1 012.11 065.24 067.11 067.53 087.2 130.1 130.17 141.1 141.17 011.5 036.49 072.2 122.8 006.7 006.23 021.6 035.11 038.7 073.9 101.13 129.10 065.22 066.6 134.8 043.15 101.29 130.9 141.9 041.6 051.45 044.2 066.1 109.17 044.8 051.1 059.16 101.6 126.16 W The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, Walked And the living walked less like men The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. Walking I hear them in the grass when I am walking Walks He walks where none can know or see, She walks in charm, adoring nature pleases Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, She walks with stately grace. She walks with dust and dreams. Wall Desparing cry. I crouched against the wall In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Now I, at dusk, beside the wall of ancient tombs, Walled The dark, walled city slowly came in view, Walls Sunken walls of crumbling stone Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Along the walls dwelt living mummies, bound Around me, solid walls of no escape, Walpurgis Walpurgis Eve. Walska Elizabeth Arden, Walska, and Rubenstein; Wan While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary All colours else were wan and tame, Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Wand As if a wizard’s wand Wander And wander in far lands and seas, alone, Shall I wander in the hollows And longer ways before you yet to wander Memories only wander where Wandered I have wandered in spirit, Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; There where I wandered, purple shadows ran Wanders Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, Wane That murmur of things that wane, The minutes shall wane in delirium, the burning hours pass slowly, And outer, oldest galaxies that wane; Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? Murmur of all things that wane, Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, Wanes A fuller dream replacing that that wanes. She will dream as the night wanes slowly, Waning Springtide waning, Beauty sweet, Want What do I want? This do I want. War Foul messenger of war and holocaust, Warble The clear, pure warble of a nightingale 419 130.13 141.13 048.6 091.10 131.1 014.9 041.7 050.10 053.1 053.16 088.9 124.7 134.4 086.9 047.11 069.1 072.7 078.9 061.12 129.11 045.11 046.23 104.3 034.3 025.3 033.25 037.9 047.6 033.2 036.11 036.36 071.1 069.12 001.10 003.25 036.6 043.20 063.10 096.68 051.14 065.19 100.6 123.16 123.20 017.18 021.5 420 Warbling A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Is like the pure, sweet warbling of a bird, I looked across the great plain warily. And I shall kiss thy warm, soft lips The sun lay warm along our way, The sun lay warm along our way. Behind, the thirsting tips upon me, warm, Slow patterns in the air; the warm embrace You care for that warm house of all your own, Warmer Or if, beneath those warmer, clearer skies, Warming And languid, warming into life; no dread Warmth The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, Warning A warning cry—the shadowy forms are shifting: Some warning voice calls out: Go back—go back! Wars Inflicted by the gods in elder wars. Was As Sappho of Lesbos was loved in the glory of Greece that is gone; My blood was burning in my veins, and all the torment And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, And I was more insatiate with satiation, And by the dark caress was claimed forever, Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: Was self-imposed. Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, Was it a half-god or a satyr leaping There came a sound: Was it a song of gladness Or was it the old despairing cry of sadness Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing And by a hideous world was crucified Was there a goddess in the days of old, And of his face, there was no vestige seen, And all his flesh to rottenness was slave; For I was his, that horror of the dead. Thine eyes were old when God was born, Itself was lost beyond abysses of the night... Our task was done. Where night was like a shroud before an altar And farther still when life was yet to come, When time had ceased, when every world was riven, Until your birthsite was become effaced. Was it only for darkness to blind me, For a love that was fleeting as day? There was never love greater than mine, so destroying, so ravaging, ravishing, rapturous, deep; Was the tribute then given in vain? Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? Ere the flame was to fade from thy face, and my love to consume Warily Warm 028.3 082.5 004.73 049.8 049.14 092.13 114.7 117.2 099.12 075.6 066.10 015.45 083.9 024.4 003.34 007.5 007.7 007.25 011.23 013.11 013.21 014.23 015.1 015.19 015.33 015.35 015.37 026.7 027.1 029.5 029.6 029.14 030.9 034.15 035.8 036.13 036.26 036.37 037.7 043.7 043.8 043.14 043.18 043.27 W and increase and devour alone? Strange was the night, and stranger I was the first to tinge his pen; I was the only colour when He was half-mad; Once he was pale with love of me, He was possessed with my red flame, Fourth was I in the coloured host, I was the sign of royal state, And its glory far was known, The face was lost and I had guessed But they whose life was barren are most fretful, There was none before you, My corpse was once a festering sore A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, All it would find was a plump drowned rat Was someone here? Or was he bent on dark adventure, bold, Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— It was my own; my own face showed that hue, The mouth where something dark was trickling through. It fell in parts, and I was part of it. In that far, future time where I was fleeing For in the talons I was fast immured. Before I dropped away, for I was free— That flayed my flesh, and I was bound by spells Now was I destined after all to die, Whence came that unknown color? Was its source I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding For I was its, that horror from the dead. I struggled onward though my strength was spent Of creepers, and where head should be was growing That nightmare sculpture, running fast, was near me.... I too was fastened on that tree of death. The maid I love was buried long ago; I know not whether she was slave or queen; How glad I was that I at last awoke! My face was eaten by a red, huge Thing. There was a red, raw dripping thing that mowed There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood There was a sound, gigantically loud, There was a crackle as of blazing wood, And all the air was misty as a cloud. And everything was red and strange and mad; Of death itself, there now was left no trace, In all infinity was left no place For Death the Conqueror at last was king; Not anywhere was life nor anything, 421 043.28 045.5 046.2 046.3 046.4 046.10 046.21 046.26 046.30 047.14 049.18 051.17 052.1 054.48 057.3 057.15 058.12 059.11 070.7 072.10 073.5 073.8 073.14 076.1 079.8 079.13 080.6 085.1 088.1 089.1 090.14 091.3 092.8 092.14 093.14 099.1 099.11 104.14 105.14 106.1 106.3 106.5 106.7 106.8 106.10 107.3 107.7 107.9 107.12 422 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Surely this beauty was not meant for keeping 119.1 In this sweet earthly house was not for sleeping 119.4 Of recognition, nor was I to stay 122.4 So long as there was never danger; 128.14 Her latest lover’s love was such 128.17 Her laugh was like a silver bell. 128.33 That once was man. 133.72 And a smell of dandelions was 136.11 He surely was a classic beauty.” 137.28 The school was more than popular 140.5 There was a young woman I know 144.1 There always was farther to go. 144.5 There was a young man—such a pity!— 145.1 Washing Sunk beneath the washing wave; 047.2 Wasn’t Who plainly wasn’t old enough? 138.34 Waste Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 In void, in waste, in riddle never guessed, 036.30 Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste 051.5 Wasted Of wasted years; 039.15 Wasteland They dwell in wasteland and in night. 010.5 Wasteland They caught me in the wasteland in the west. 086.1 I hear them in the meadows and in wasteland, 131.7 Wastes The blood-red waving wastes of sand 055.11 Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, 085.7 Wastrel I am wastrel, never keeper, 133.34 Watch I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. 011.17 To watch a little creature pick 030.15 With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; 035.2 Watch upon the ruins gleaming 047.20 Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. 051.63 Will watch while she waits on the stone; 065.22 And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face 077.4 And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face 077.4 096.23 I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, 096.37 For, and the loveliness you watch so well. 114.12 And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, 138.39 Watched I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. 011.17 And watched a queen of Saturn mourn 030.11 I watched the universe grow cold and chill; 036.34 I watched on earth the littler things around; 036.44 Her face has watched the dying sun. 055.8 From having watched the dead rose petals strew 068.3 It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long 073.9 I watched them till, from out the greater dark, 074.9 I know that I’ll by them be watched for ever 087.13 W We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; Watching Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, While its pale eyes kept watching patiently Water Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, Air and water creatures fight, Waters I paused and watched the cryptic waters watch. I peered amid those waters black and still. And in the waters saw my own face drown, Into the shadowland I made my way Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Where breakers and lonely waters roar, The waters mounted in one surge whose swell I dreamed the waters of the world had died, Lethal waters sleep and swoon Water-Snakes In a marsh that even the water-snakes spurn, Wave Sunk beneath the washing wave; Of wave that smote against colossal wave. Waves see also Sea-Waves Inferno, to the waves Sometimes she dreams to music of murmuring waves The rush of waves that seek in vain I am foam torn free of storm waves cresting, Waving The blood-red waving wastes of sand With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, Way From the way I have taken Winging your vast way lonely and alone Look homeward, angel, for the way is long. And my heart is fulfilled of its dream as I walk my enchanted way. The sun lay warm along our way, The sun lay warm along our way. Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, And drowsyhead gives way to dreams more slumberous, The Beloved is gone; I know not the way she has taken; That’s natural artifice in you; the way I hear them wide awake or part way resting, Wayfarer What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? Ways We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble I have made love in normal and eccentric ways; And the ways that I cherished. And longer ways before you yet to wander I crawled like one impelled on ways resisted, In your steps on the wakened ways of earth 423 112.6 006.23 073.3 051.40 126.10 011.17 011.21 011.24 011.1 011.12 060.3 060.13 094.5 095.1 126.1 125.9 047.2 094.10 048.14 060.8 060.18 133.23 055.11 060.7 033.11 037.3 037.14 044.8 049.8 049.14 051.63 054.29 067.51 096.28 101.26 114.4 131.9 059.9 003.31 013.17 033.24 037.9 045.3 051.45 424 We A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom And point out ways to rapturous rebirth; I hear them in the spring rise and in fall ways, We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking We shall live in a rapturous embrace, in an endless and holy We shall love in our passion in strange and ineffable ways and dissemble Though we die. We shall pass. Let us have joy while we may; While we say, Only now do we live. And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep, We buried her in the solemn fall We left her staring at the musty pall, We shivered in the quiet air, We left her far more quiet body lying there: We left no mark to show her grave, We only left her body lying still and deep; We left her only to the waiting earth that gave For we will know how love We will pour ashes from the phials And we will part, as once we parted And we will part, as once we parted We were the colours that his love We were most high; Yet we like a woman came to cloy. We were won and lost of a mad young boy. In whose oblivion we shall meet; We turned and set forth once more, But we turned too late and we knew our fate Before we had lost the shore. Till the engines failed and we lay there gaoled Then ocean received the husks that we heaved As we strode the streets of Tyre As we strode down the streets of Tyre. As we, triumphant, strode along, 117.1 118.11 124.11 131.13 003.15 003.19 003.27 003.31 003.40 004.48 004.50 004.54 004.70 007.9 007.11 007.13 007.14 007.15 007.17 014.21 014.24 014.27 014.31 035.1 035.3 035.5 035.7 035.9 035.10 035.11 039.5 039.10 039.22 039.22 046.34 046.36 046.38 046.39 046.46 048.2 048.3 048.4 048.19 048.21 049.1 049.7 049.19 W Traveler: Goodby, but if we meet again— Death: We will. We will, and I know when. Though endlessly we traversed far abysses, We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. We have lived through cycles of birth and change, through cosmic ages, We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; We have read inscrutable symbols on dim, dynastic pages, We have been participant and passer-by. To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; We have seen in the future time, and space, and the universe creeping We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: We have been the dreamed-of, the dreamer, the fugitive dream: We have found that only the dream is unchanging, O Love, and eternal, We listened to the strange rain We listened to these strange tall dreams That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget How greatly you have guided us. We go Only do we who knew you feel the source, Weak Until, my shaking limbs grown weak, I stepped A nameless and sorcerous glory has made me weak: These charnel horrors made me sick and weak, Weaken Is it thine that shall weaken and wane? Weaker Briefer, weaker, Wealth DEATH: I offer thee the wealth A greater wealth your greater love assures Death: I offer you the wealth Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? Wear So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Wearier And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier Wearies Each vespertime, he wearies of the view Wearily So endlessly, so wearily, you paced Doubt everything, doubt that I doubt, and wearily Weariness And weariness of life oppresses me; But weariness. And I am sick to death with utter weariness Weary see also Sea-Weary That love and passion weary all too soon. Lo, all the later days are long and dull and weary, The vacant spaces of the weary night; I weary of the old monotony of things; 425 067.54 067.55 079.9 112.1 112.3 112.5 112.6 112.7 112.8 112.10 112.11 112.13 112.14 112.15 136.1 136.9 146.3 146.4 146.8 078.4 101.22 104.9 043.20 133.37 012.18 051.32 067.18 096.13 096.17 096.73 096.50 069.9 037.5 096.62 007.54 013.12 013.27 007.16 007.45 007.50 013.1 426 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei My weary mind has travelled all the stellar maze Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary That I am weary though I’ve gone not far, Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; And every forward step a weary strain. Weary of all desires grown monotonous, And weary drag of minutes grows less dolorous, And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, And leave behind me all the weary works of man, And all around, the weary corpses lie; With weary steps to the old, original end. Why am I weary? Thus am I weary. I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Weave Enchanted me with dreams that weave; The bat-things weave, The spinning threads weave patterns rich and rare, Weaving And when I crossed the imperial weaving span Webbed Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Web-Faced With the breath of the web-faced things asleep Webwork I stroked the glistening webwork on its head. Wed And holy sin and sanctity were wed. Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed Wedgwood This is the Wedgwood she lifted, the saki she quaffed, her Wee Then thousand ships and more; shapes great and wee Weeds see also Marsh-Weeds Sometimes in cool delight she floats on drifting weeds Weedy The weedy pastures and the drowned, the dead; Week Was it an hour? Eternity? A week?— It merely hinted of the coming week. Weep We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep We shall not weep, That flowered not, and all things weep to die, Weird With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, Weird, lifeless birds that talked and harshly sang. Of human form or beast, weird sorcery And weird encrusted forms on every side. Welcome Revel and welcome, games and play Well For well we knew the holy night must have an ending, So little, yet to do so well, 013.19 016.1 045.11 050.5 054.29 091.4 096.7 096.29 096.43 096.49 096.98 103.2 112.12 123.6 123.10 124.8 042.5 061.10 116.6 071.5 043.25 125.3 075.2 007.36 054.10 129.1 095.7 060.12 095.11 072.10 084.14 014.21 014.24 014.27 014.31 051.16 034.7 081.4 093.7 095.8 049.5 007.15 042.10 W Went Were Lost Atlantis slumbers well Futile, futility as well; that all things wane, Out of the well of the heart and the heart’s recesses For, and the loveliness you watch so well. Her gestures supplemented well “Huh. Well, maybe. But I’m sociable, Miss—” “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, And once thy purple eyes went blind As I went onward toward those upper lairs. For she paid half, when they went Dutch, As the amorous maidens were loved in decadent Rome I shall love her, And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, And we were fierce and passionate in our embraces, For one intoxicating night were mine. Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, And holy sin and sanctity were wed. All time and space were mine, and mine was every sky: And still it seemed as if great Pan were calling What forms were those that through the forest sleeping Upon their brows, forgotten girls were flinging To pagan Pan their passionate lips were singing And body to body, drunken forms were swaying The older glory of the days that were Thine eyes were at the avatar That blasted all the worlds that were. Thine eyes were old when God was born, Valerian, thine eyes were sick Thine eyes were stricken when they saw In your lips that were tender And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. Still farther back before the stars were spawning Still farther where not even stars were flaring Is it only a mirror for love that I find in the beauty that else were as shadowed as night? Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? All colours else were wan and tame, We were the colours that his love We were most high; We were won and lost of a mad young boy. No voice to tell of days that were, Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, Through its foul dead realm were it ever to squirm, As if there never were an end in store. Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard As I remember, there were clanging gongs 427 047.40 096.68 110.1 114.12 128.35 139.11 139.15 007.29 030.41 074.4 128.19 003.33 007.9 007.11 007.20 007.22 007.33 007.36 013.21 015.7 015.17 015.21 015.23 015.39 026.12 030.5 030.8 030.9 030.13 030.21 033.19 036.25 036.27 036.29 043.4 043.27 046.23 046.34 046.36 046.39 053.12 057.4 057.14 078.7 079.1 080.1 428 We’re West Wet What A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei As I remember, there were flaming tongs Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. The vacant halls were quiet as a tomb. Though they who tortured me were far behind, For they were deathless hunters, I the dying. The ocean beds were open now, and free, And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, And all love’s joys that were. That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? There were great cobwebs hanging everywhere, And awful things were lying all around— And there were living, ancient mummies bound Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon And both my hands were covered with that red, His realms were vacua, he proved his vow We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. Than any known in lands that never were, Though all my days were added one by one, Though every day were filled with benison Though every hour were rich with a great store Though this were Paradise, and Paradise How fair you were, if you were only fair, If in your head or heart, there were not room Else beauty were as lifeless as a tomb. Were errors that have lost their hold on me. Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Her thoughts and deeds alike were shoddy. Her vestures; both were quite revealing. For you were token. If your name were only Mabel Tall candles there were dreaming If this were done to Minnesota, And wonder what we’re conning to. Her bow toward the cleaner west They caught me in the wasteland in the west. Out of the west, foul breezes sweep, I reached my hands down to the cool, wet depths Saw only a realm of wet black sand Over all the tall wet grass. My destiny, and found what men can never guess; What forms were those that through the forest sleeping And find that what I thought so great is but What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? What evil source your awful scarlet flood? Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? What, ho! For the Bacchic brotherhood! Contains what a flagon always should! 080.5 080.8 081.14 085.9 085.14 095.2 096.32 096.54 101.12 104.1 104.2 104.7 105.1 105.7 106.9 107.10 112.3 113.3 115.1 115.3 115.5 115.9 116.3 116.4 116.8 120.14 121.4 128.28 128.36 132.6 135.7 136.3 138.35 138.18 048.18 086.1 125.1 011.22 057.8 136.12 013.10 015.17 016.3 017.1 017.2 017.12 022.2 022.6 W What did it matter a thousand years ago What will it matter a thousand years from now What total purpose wrought such total doom; Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder Through them and over them—what shall be found What shall reward the delver’s toil What words convey how closelier she follows Her garments only know what curves and hollows Be still, O Muse! what syllables soever, Therefor am I, with what I have, content, What though you walk by Mammon unattended, What though one kingdom each of you forsake, What did he seek, this wayfarer of old? What goal, what new companion did I seek? For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Had I, although I knew on what it fed, What form you have, for always you appear What nameless hunter searching for its meat? So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird What sight in later hours would haply greet What are the dim dread images that bind What sense of overhanging doom has made Me fearful? What the sight that I shall find? For my escape I knew what I must pay: No hint of what it once resembled, save What followed me across the lifeless plain? What shape of evil? What its foul intent? But what is there in wealth? In treasure what but treasure? And you will never know what years drift by. A counterpart of what is still to be? What they appeared. But there are some so blind What they are told, the falseness never find What do I want? Believed no truth except what pleased her; And ashes consume what the elders condemn. Building on to what goal later, What end smaller Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I, Oh what a classicist am I. And wonder what we’re conning to. “Saturday night then, Miss Shere. What time?” “What are you talking about?” “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” And ashes consume what the elder gods condemn. Whatever Whatever on the other side should lie, 429 026.1 026.5 036.12 037.11 038.3 038.11 041.9 041.11 041.13 050.13 051.1 051.31 059.9 072.9 074.3 075.7 077.7 079.3 079.4 079.6 083.5 083.7 083.8 086.3 090.7 091.1 091.2 096.17 118.4 118.10 121.5 121.7 123.16 128.30 130.8 133.62 133.63 137.1 137.19 137.29 138.18 139.5 139.6 139.7 139.12 141.8 083.12 430 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Whelming He burst asunder all the whelming bars When When the cold monotone When thou at the breasts of thy mistress art slaking When thou thy pleasure and joy art taking, When down the hillside came a long, low crying, You only live when all worth living’s lost. Thine eyes were old when God was born, Thine eyes were stricken when they saw And when they oped they could not find And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. And farther still when life was yet to come, When time had ceased, when every world was riven, To perish when my later footsteps came; And when in closer human haunts I tired, When he finds their source? When all the olden days are over, When Atlantis stood alone When the night came down again. When I felt through me spread the germ Death: We will. We will, and I know when. Until, once more, when mistily comes the morn, For in the midnight hours, when sleep descends, Across a velvet sky. And when I came. And when I crossed the imperial weaving span And when my steed permitted me to light, The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; And when the talons loosened, I could see And when I saw these titans, thereupon But when I passed and left them in their gloom, When I collapsed beneath that burning sky? Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, And when at last my captors bore me through I found no door, and when all hope lay dead When of this pastime tiring. Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile And when thy surfeit comes, then die! and die a-flinging When light shone out of the mystical ebb and flow: We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew For she paid half, when they went Dutch, And Machen to read when she thinks of the fabulous chalice. When post-historic revels will unfetter them, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, When death has been captured and time overtaken, I hear them in the grass when I am walking I hear them when no human voice is talking I hear them when I am not even questing 024.5 002.27 005.1 005.5 015.3 017.20 030.9 030.21 030.43 036.25 036.26 036.37 036.52 036.55 038.12 039.1 047.13 048.8 054.26 067.55 069.13 070.9 071.4 071.5 071.12 079.7 079.11 081.11 081.13 085.4 085.7 086.12 088.7 096.33 096.82 097.7 112.2 112.3 113.4 128.19 129.8 130.6 130.7 130.11 131.1 131.3 131.11 W Who knows when I first began? But when my span The legend saith: when each lone traveller passes by, When I can make my students Cram. And when I die, must be enscrolled Especially when their knees are pretty. When post-historic revels will unfetter them, When skies turn to flame in a universe burning, When death has been captured and time overtaken, When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; Whence Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? Whence the last birds are winging? I was the only colour when Whence came that unknown color? Was its source And how and whence the steadfastness, the source? Where Where the lilies bloom above; Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering Waiting, watching till I come and join them where, Where lichens creep on crumbled fanes Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Where silence ruled yet something waited me Where all seemed dead beneath the branch-twined roof He walks where none can know or see, Where ancient gods assuaged their lust consuming Where maidens swoon in midnight ecstasies; Where flame greets flame in quenchless fire. She lies where the Lesbian poppies nod, Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— A reveller creeps where his leman sleeps— It lies where ashen lips no longer sing— An unknown golden tongue where every word They passed the land where flowers gnaw Where other universes flow. Where I entered the traces Where the asphodels are springing? Where shall I find you? Where soaring pinions And where the heart’s transcendent vision, unreturning, Where only courage of lost hope could ravel Where dwindling monitors of night had sundered Where night was like a shroud before an altar Where sand and tides on shattered cities roll, Still farther where not even stars were flaring Where legend prophesied divinity, For love, the dell where hired maenads moan. Where asphodels do grow. 431 133.58 133.59 134.13 137.10 137.25 138.8 141.6 141.7 141.11 141.14 006.11 017.4 017.12 033.28 046.3 088.1 147.9 004.26 006.21 006.23 010.2 011.2 011.5 011.7 014.9 015.27 015.44 018.12 019.2 020.5 023.1 023.7 027.13 028.2 030.23 030.40 033.15 033.26 033.40 034.12 034.14 036.3 036.9 036.13 036.22 036.29 037.12 040.8 041.4 432 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei To worship where she goes. There where the gnarled limbs twisted Where its buried cities sleep Memories only wander where Mark where dead Atlantis lies Where the fabled roses bloomed. Where the strange sea-creatures lurk. And cast them for our footfall where Where no man walks, and shall not ever see, The tarns run red where the fen-fires toss— Where it lived and ruled in the endless gloom, Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise Where the rippling waters ebb and flow between Or rests where an ocean current laves Where breakers and lonely waters roar, Where sea-friends dwell, Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Where the trees form a little dark room: She will halt where the moonrays trace Where he sleeps with the dead. Where banners of his proud name float unfurled, Where peasants till starved earth and long dead ground. Attempts to flee from depths where hope was slain; I dream through realms where naught begins or ends, Where all things are, yet are not; time and space Where far, unhuman beings’ dark embrace There where I wandered, purple shadows ran Through mightier gulfs where still the purple rule The mouth where something dark was trickling through. In that far, future time where I was fleeing Where sat an even greater, stranger being, That clove through midnight where no other stirred, The answer came, where I in torment lay, Where vast, dark marbles stood in endless miles, That followed through the chamber where I fled. I saw from that dim cave where I was hiding To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, Of creepers, and where head should be was growing The outer-lands where all’s a dream, and dream-winds blow Is only known in realms where dream-winds blow. No voice remains to tell me where she lies, I walk in the steps where the Beloved and I held tryst; Where, drowsy and drunken and dreaming, nod and list And then they left me, lonely. lying where That seemed to pour from where the horror stood; Where Death in death all things did not immerse. Where none are seen: Where nothing else remains. In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: 041.8 045.1 047.4 047.6 047.25 047.31 047.41 049.13 050.10 056.11 057.12 059.7 060.3 060.10 060.13 060.22 062.4 065.10 065.11 065.16 069.4 069.7 070.7 070.10 070.11 070.13 071.1 071.10 073.8 076.1 076.4 079.5 080.13 081.10 088.6 089.1 090.11 092.8 096.101 099.4 099.9 101.6 101.9 103.13 106.6 107.8 109.12 109.39 111.6 W Wherefor Wherein 433 Where moons are high, and only dream-winds stir, For beauty of the mind, where, as on a loom In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, Out of the dark where the black moons creep, Where miasmal stenches slowly The lanes where hopeful virgins tumbled. The little gods hide where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eery lands where the fen-fires gleam. Where none could know or share. Past where, once seen, once open, close in no tomorrow, The monster gods hid where the fen-fires gleam. And they hide in eerie lands where the fen-fires gleam. 113.6 116.5 124.7 125.2 126.6 128.24 130.4 130.20 134.6 134.10 141.4 141.20 Wherefor, solution distant as a star, Now wherefor do you make this larger room The legend saith: wherefor does any legend matter? 050.7 118.9 134.19 Wherein sweet terms, as Love, and Hope, and God, Wherein a cloudlike throng Wherever To flee, but where I crawled, wherever fled, Whether Oh little creature, whether old or young, I know not whether she was slave or queen; Which Still seeking that which I had never found, On which such sunfire beat. Than which no love can have supremer worth. All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; The world of which no tale is handed down. The days for which the heart should be most grateful From which a tongue curled inward to my lair, I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, There was a shape, on which a scarlet flood On which the cool green rain gleams. Which is better than all, Whichever So dark whichever pathway one may go, While A little while, For a little while, our life is bright, For a little while, there is light, After a while shalt go. Let us have joy while we may; While we say, And while the fleeting hours away; While empty cities rot away Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary While sick men stoked; the black hulk poked While maidens lovely, smiling, fair, 102.3 109.35 090.11 077.9 099.11 036.42 048.12 051.49 054.13 068.14 070.4 089.13 101.28 106.3 136.10 143.6 050.3 004.14 004.31 004.32 004.42 004.50 004.54 004.72 010.11 037.13 045.11 048.17 049.11 434 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way; At me and slyly chuckle while they keep While creatures cower in their burrows, silent all, While scattered leaves in mildewed heaps Will watch while she waits on the stone; Then wanders onward while the shadows fall, While its pale eyes kept watching patiently It watched me, waiting, while I stared as long With eyes of golden fury; while a score Showed everywhere, while flopping creatures died. Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, Enough, while drowsy minutes lengthen to hours golden, I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite So muse I while the endless, aimless minutes wear Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise While I pass by While over us the wind at twilight soughs, Whines From the palace, a marble monster whines, Whirl A drunken girl where the revellers whirl— Whirled In a furnace of ecstasy whirled, Whirls Or whirls I hear the music’s plaintive sob, watch spins and whirls, Whirlwind She reaped the whirlwind she had sown, Whisper Living in their silence secrets whence no whisper A frantic whisper with the wind is blended There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. Whisper of the days of old, The mountains and the rivers whisper: Death. With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why Whispered Is whispered by the sad wind sighing The fleshly flowers whispered avidly: Whispering With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, I saw the whispering knoll. Upon the whispering knoll. With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, Whispers And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies All nature whispers but her one word: Death. White see also Flesh-White I hold all her body a beautiful living white chalice Now I shall hold her white body closer and closer, till her red lips be ashen, Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers Its white life away; Tremors across his white flesh pass. 054.29 054.40 061.5 062.9 065.22 069.12 073.3 073.9 081.6 095.4 096.37 096.58 096.67 096.73 119.7 133.41 147.3 125.18 023.1 043.22 060.2 096.23 128.31 006.11 015.43 044.2 047.12 102.11 110.8 147.8 004.62 082.1 001.2 045.4 045.20 063.2 062.7 102.9 003.7 003.23 009.7 009.8 018.8 W 435 To soothe white flesh that for caresses aches. 020.4 There are strange eyes that beckon, white breasts and bodies crying 020.9 Then, on this paper now so blank and white, 025.5 White poppy of the crimson eve— 042.2 White 046.41 In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled 054.23 Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, 057.4 Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, 057.23 All her dreaming, raptured face is white, 058.3 From dawn to dusk her white sides feel 060.17 I saw rise up a substance soft and white 095.13 Her eyes are blind; her sweet white limbs but know 099.5 I am blind in the white embrace of the moon’s hot stream; 101.27 Of some white form that made a rattling sound; 104.6 “Ely Forchamer, Miss Shere. I’m white and virtuous and fairly goo—” 139.9 White-Caps The white-caps and the foam their coronal. 020.8 White-Limbed For the white-limbed god. 019.4 Who Even as one who loves thee, Love, 004.3 As the forgotten girls who placed them there. 004.60 As one who of strange pleasure sips, 004.74 Who ruled in fabulous, forgotten Troy; 008.10 And I, who hold that Beauty is supreme, 008.13 Has claimed the everlasting vow of him who coldly rests 014.7 For him who sought the mystery, 014.25 Who asked and answered in a breath 014.34 Who cared? Once more immortal Pan was playing 015.37 Who cast on me a mystic spell malign, 027.3 And I, who long for fairer melodies 028.9 Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave 029.3 Of the mad matriarch who sate 046.31 Of those who came to praise this day 049.3 And they who merely lived are first to sigh: 051.18 054.15 About me, who am dead. Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. 059.16 Who follows an endless stream 064.3 A king who saw but used no eyes for seeing, 076.5 I who had fought so hard to reach my goal? 085.2 Though they who tortured me were far behind, 085.9 Who shambled down the midnight’s empty pave 090.3 Who can blame the mouth that sips 100.3 Unending, a tale, even to him who tells, unknown. 111.12 He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem 113.10 Who finds impersonal and calm the skies; 120.7 From love or faith or trust—fools—who believe 121.6 Who knows when I first began? 133.58 Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, 138.12 For who could ever be a prof. 138.33 436 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Who plainly wasn’t old enough? “A great deal matters. Who are you?” Who came from near and came from far Who liked it above or below, Who burped a remarkable ditty, That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Only do we who knew you feel the source, Whole I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping And drew gas for the whole of Sauk City! Wholly With its drapery hiding all wholly, And into more than light, to something wholly Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, Whom In whom all Beauty’s graces meet— And death, the great, from whom he held his vow Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true You are the fairest of the lovely whom Are these bright ways foredue to that one whom Whoops How it howls and whoops Whose Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence Whose dream of old is gone Before the greater dream whose dawn For him whose mystic sleep For him whose sightless eyes To claim the maid for whose desire he strove? Whose perfect euphony would be as clear Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? In whose oblivion we shall meet; But they whose life was barren are most fretful, Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, Cover the form whose hand still gropes. But inbetween; whose phosphorescent glow, Whose black, scaled body had for head a beak, Whose source could only, be some fearful shape The waters mounted in one surge whose swell Chaunting of moon-dim princesses whose clime Its superficial vesture whose arrays To brilliant flame, whose splendors mesmerize, Shrieking, thus to settle whose Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall Whose rare Returning humbly our own love whose force, Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why Why Why are the marsh-weeds drooping low? Why has the night-wind ceased to blow? Why do the mandrakes fear to die? The door must open, showing why the hue 138.34 139.8 140.7 144.2 145.2 146.3 146.8 013.29 067.5 112.9 145.5 043.35 051.11 096.40 012.52 014.6 113.8 116.1 118.11 002.12 011.8 014.13 014.14 014.22 014.28 015.20 028.12 043.16 046.46 051.17 057.4 062.10 075.4 075.13 078.11 094.5 113.13 117.3 119.6 126.11 127.3 127.9 146.6 147.8 056.2 056.4 056.12 078.13 W 437 Why is it that I tremble, half afraid, 083.3 My hand? Why is my arm so strongly stayed? 083.6 Why do I shrink from the soft red mouths of roses 101.11 Why am I sad? 123.1 Why am I weary? 123.6 Why am I old? 123.11 Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. 128.32 Of why the plan 133.70 Who knew why Romans didn’t rhyme, 138.12 Why, there each young M.A. would go to, 138.36 Alone know why, 143.8 Whose whisper in the quiet darkness? Why 147.8 Wide Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 And giant fountains pouring down the wide skylanes. 034.9 With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, 060.7 That enters her wide domain. 060.16 Fling wide the roses, ere the petals all be faded, 097.1 And four-dimension vaults revolve and open wide; 130.14 I hear them wide awake or part way resting, 131.9 When four-dimensioned vaults revolve and open wide; 141.14 Widening And widening inch by inch along the floor 078.3 Wild A song of pagan passion, wild and sweet; 015.4 From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning 015.31 A last, wild note from the distant hills comes drifting— 015.47 And on the salt sea-wind there comes a wild, sweet sighing 020.11 With that wild color overspread, 055.7 Their wild eyes glare. 061.8 Running wild 133.48 Wilde The thought of Wilde in Piccadilly, 128.3 Wildly How it wildly swoops 002.14 That made our veins and pulses wildly beat. 007.24 THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! 012.53 Did I embrace her wildly, did I hold 027.5 Wildly, wildly, round features mandragoral 068.4 In that bare wall where my fists wildly beat, 124.7 Wildwood With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, 063.2 Will Of the wind will moan 002.28 She will strip herself naked, in splendid and terrible glory array her, 003.9 The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. 003.11 Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, 003.13 Her eyes will close at my lips on the feverish brow above; 003.14 We will pass from rapture to rapture and plumb the most utter abysses 003.15 In my arms I will hold her, passive, but I know her flesh will be aching 003.17 438 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei There will never be rapture nor passion like ours, our bond shall not sever To dust and ash will turn. But a moment will come and death destroy Never a rose will deathlessly bloom, Never will Beauty escape the grave, Never will mortal outlive the tomb— Never again will a dead girl thrill For us the future never will come, And never will the present cease, There will be, Remember the days that will come of the breaking But Time will pass, and Love will pass, and all Love’s pleasure, Of golden voices that will never speak; I know that death itself will never bring release; For ever will I call, and search the frozen skies What will it matter a thousand years from now Out of oblivion, no voice will stir Will be as perished poppies overblown Their secrets will remain untold I will not find it till all things shall cease, I know this all I ever will be knowing: You will come back to me, You will return; Our thoughts will be more sad than death is For we will know how love You will come back to me, lost lover, We will pour ashes from the phials Dead eyes will greet dead eyes, and ravage Mute tongues will tell remembered hemlocks You will come back some day, lost lover, You will return; And we will part, as once we parted Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? All his great love will end in me, There will be none after. There will spring no laughter For there will come none after, My body will not pour Till darkness falls—it never will— Her vigil never will be done: She will go in the cold moonlight To her tryst she will go in the night, As the wind she will pass. She will move through the moveless shade She will halt in a secret place She will halt where the moonrays trace She will sink on the cold, cold ground, 003.39 004.9 004.33 004.35 004.36 004.37 004.66 004.69 004.78 004.81 005.3 007.41 012.34 013.30 013.31 026.5 026.9 026.13 030.51 036.58 036.63 039.2 039.3 039.4 039.5 039.7 039.10 039.13 039.16 039.19 039.21 039.22 043.16 046.43 052.2 052.5 052.8 054.53 055.17 055.18 065.1 065.3 065.4 065.7 065.9 065.11 065.13 W She will pillow her head She will rest on the lawn; She will dream as the night wanes slowly, Will watch while she waits on the stone; Will wait, alone. Of golden voices that again will speak; For I will help you find— Death: We will. We will, and I know when. Make this your home for I will make it yours; And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above Take, or the taking never will be thine; A million million men will live and pass, And all that ever will be known, is Death. They know that it will take me years to die, Blessed be the living for they will be dead. Whom spells will fetter sleeping till the true Of modes that will not match despite your pains. There will be none with you to help you share it, And you will never know what years drift by. And it may be that you will find it lonely, And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only You will become? It seems so strange to me The chance, the pattern, call it as one will, Neither thing will walk again. When post-historic revels will unfetter them, The little gods then will tremble and waken The little gods will answer their elders and rise. The little gods will walk from hill and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. Will atom keep The golden poppy once again will grow to bloom “You certainly will.” When post-historic revels will unfetter them, The monster gods then will tremble and waken The monster gods will answer the Ancient Ones and rise. The monster gods will walk then from hills and from highlands, They will spew from the sea and climb from sunken islands, From time-gulfs and planes of space they will glide. That we who linger here will not forget, can not forget Willow The willow branches’ languid tendrils sank, The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; Willow-Fingers Drowning as willow-fingers drowned, deep—deep— Willow-Grasses With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, 439 065.14 065.18 065.19 065.22 065.24 067.34 067.45 067.55 077.10 096.41 096.47 097.6 102.14 102.20 103.3 108.2 113.8 117.8 118.3 118.4 118.5 118.6 118.7 118.12 122.5 126.16 130.6 130.9 130.12 130.13 130.15 130.16 133.66 134.23 139.16 141.6 141.9 141.12 141.13 141.15 141.16 146.3 011.18 061.1 011.25 001.2 440 Willows A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop 011.12 Or remain by the willows 033.27 Is it the willows shiver and sigh? 056.10 Willy There stand her books, the Willy Pogany Alice 129.5 Win And win the prof’s eternal pity, 138.7 Wind see also Night-Wind, North-Wind, Sea-Wind Like the voice of a wind that shivers and passes 001.1 Like the wind, and the trees, and the rain, 001.9 Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, 001.12 And the wind is blowing cold. 002.7 Of the wind will moan 002.28 And the wind is blowing cold. 002.35 Is whispered by the sad wind sighing 004.62 And on the wind the strange, low notes kept failing 015.5 From the sea, a wind; the revelry has ended; 015.41 A frantic whisper with the wind is blended 015.43 Where only the wind and the wide, waste meadows have their home, 020.5 As if a wind had musically stirred 028.7 The wind is wailing in the willow trees tonight; 061.1 And the dirge of a wind that whispers and dies 062.7 Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, 063.12 As the wind she will pass. 065.4 A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places 111.3 A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing 111.7 While over us the wind at twilight soughs, 147.3 Wind-Departed That glimmer beneath her sunless, wind-departed skies. 060.5 Winding And past the winding river’s end you gaze, 147.4 Winding-Sheet I am the sweet close winding-sheet 046.45 Window And through its darkened window see no sky: 118.2 Window-Blind A deep force pulls me toward the window-blind, 083.1 Window-Pane Falling on the window-pane 136.2 Windows The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; 086.11 Window’s Beyond the window’s tracery 055.1 Out of the window’s smouldering red 055.5 Winds see also Dream-Winds Till night had cooled the burning winds of day; 015.6 Secret the winds that hollowly pass 038.2 There is a stir of wakening winds that whisper across the lawn. 044.2 Grown faint, the winds drift slowly 109.9 With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. 110.8 For the winds that have blown, 123.2 Wind’s For song and laughter, now the wind’s regret; 040.5 W Wine For wine of fire. Love and wine. Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Song and the Devil and Wine are good! Lust, and the red, red wine! Lust, and the red, red wine! And drink her kisses as a priceless wine? And drunk a wine of amethyst With wine of life. For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; Wine of life and of death I have drunken, I find no surcease in the unrelieving wine; Red roses in the overflowing wine. Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! For I give love like sips of precious wine And for thy wine, than earthly wine more sweet, Wine-Full Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Wine-red A wine-red toast to the health of the host— Wing Could wing no flight, Winging Whence the last birds are winging? Winging your vast way lonely and alone Wings Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, With wings of beating purple flew to me Vast wings were flapping in the night. I heard So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird The dawn, when those great wings had made retreat; Vast wings were flapping in the still night air; And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune; Winking Drink! For the joy of the winking wine! Wins He wins the long awaited separation Winter In heat of summer day or cold of winter snow; Wiped I am the cinder wiped away, Wisdom I am wisdom of my own self blind, The very mice absorb their wisdom, Wise I lived whole cycles of existence; I am wise; At last are wise Then blind, the favored ones; while I, more wise Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Wish The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! Witches’ Imbedded witches’ jewels mystical, Witch-Fires Mandrakes writhe and witch-fires burn, Witch-Forms Witch-forms tormented, from dark demon danger, 441 003.8 015.24 022.4 022.8 022.12 023.4 023.8 027.7 030.19 039.12 040.7 043.29 096.20 097.8 098.2 119.13 124.3 098.8 022.3 034.13 033.28 037.3 037.13 071.7 079.1 079.4 079.7 105.1 105.6 098.2 068.9 131.6 133.54 133.5 138.21 013.29 014.29 119.7 120.6 129.16 127.8 125.10 045.7 442 Witching A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Witching, haunted, haunting, mysterious faces Witch-Lights Strange witch-lights flare, With With whispering steps through the willow-grasses, Or the rustle of leaves that drift with the wind, With fitful gust I am enraptured of one immortally lovely, with beautiful tresses, With beauty of face and of body as the deathlessly beautiful Greek; The rapture of flesh, and desire, with all strange secrets I will betray her. Her lips and her face and her breasts, all her body I will cover with kisses, Our desire with breast to breast and body to body we shall be slaking Her lips with my lips, her passionate body with mine I shall cover Thy body fevered with love’s desire, Petals tremulous with dew at dawn With lips that to thine own lips burn, The gall that intermingled with the myrrh. And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, And I was more insatiate with satiation, A mute triumphal song with love’s refrain. Intoxicated with thy loveliness, Drunken with beauty and sweet ecstasy, Rest, with the cold ground resting Rest, with the dear things lying Sleep, with autumn sleeping, Sleep, with the white rose that slumbers Dream, with the flowers dreaming, Dream, with the brown grass withering Pass, with all joy that passes, Pass, with pleasure that fades Die, with the leaves that drift Die, with Beauty that dies Forget, with the blown poppies forgetting Forget, with the long, final forgetting Whose gaunt trunks guarded with malevolence Ringed all around with sentinels that swayed, Gave way, the willows five with solemn droop With monstrous fires aflame. Once lyrical with pagan melody. And now at last I crown me with a coronal Now I am jaded with my long, complete excess; And I am sick to death with utter weariness With nymphs and girls in amorous Bacchic moods: A frantic whisper with the wind is blended Weary of pomp and power, gorged with glut, Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. Ecstasy pains him with a quiver, 006.15 061.6 001.2 001.12 002.21 003.1 003.2 003.11 003.13 003.19 003.35 004.7 004.58 004.77 007.4 007.9 007.25 007.32 008.1 008.2 009.1 009.3 009.5 009.7 009.9 009.11 009.13 009.15 009.17 009.19 009.21 009.23 011.8 011.10 011.12 012.25 012.37 013.7 013.25 013.27 015.28 015.43 016.1 017.14 018.7 W For ever his heart is filled with yearning, With breasts of fire, and passionate lips to slake, Her eyes with longing, her face with fever burns; Beyond the rocks there are fair bodies with long tresses, With bodies flashing in the sounding seas of foam, With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! For the good of the town, with the spirits—Down! With mad new colours and queer lines I’d trace With thorns of loathing on a fevered brow? And bound me with long coils of dusky gold? My mind with longings for some ancient thing, Far silver bells with Song’s most sweet alloy. With all the dreadful cerements of the grave, With flapping tatters and long talons lean. And saw it smile with fleshless, gaping lips, Tumescent orchids swart with hair. With knowledge of the carrion With dazzle of a monstrous flame, With visions of the stellar pits, With torture on their burning spits. For they are blinded with the glut With supernatal art. The Northern Lights crept down with pulsing streamers With skirling fires of weird, vast fanes, With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; With scrutiny of systems long forgotten, By cryptic tarns aglow with lethal flame, I further search with neither hope nor peace Along starroads with only moonglow paven Come back with setting suns With wine of life. You caught me, bound me, with a spell, Enchanted me with dreams that weave; I am drunk with thy spirit, thy body, thy beauty, the rapture of endless and awful delight; Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? I am drugged with delirium, burning with beauty, intoxicate, meshed in the love thou hast sown, With its drapery hiding all wholly, The grasses with glimmering dew are jewelled in opal and amethyst, Once he was pale with love of me, He was possessed with my red flame, With power he grew intoxicate, With empty fanes. Than shadows that crept with the sun, and slept And one by one with the setting sun The city rang with joyful call Therefor am I, with what I have, content, 443 018.9 019.1 019.5 020.1 020.7 022.10 022.11 025.9 026.8 027.4 027.10 028.8 029.2 029.4 029.13 030.16 030.31 030.42 030.46 030.48 030.55 032.8 034.1 034.7 035.2 036.5 036.50 036.60 037.6 039.8 039.12 042.4 042.5 043.2 043.25 043.26 043.35 044.6 046.10 046.21 046.29 047.26 048.7 048.23 049.2 050.13 444 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei With olden dead endeavor all erased, With soft, light golden limbs to dance and follow, Then live! Live with the green, lush trees returning Live with all things of earth and airy splendor, She walks with stately grace. She walks with dust and dreams. Stares with an eye she can not shun. With that wild color overspread, Locked fast with that hypnotic sun. Whose white fat folds were covered with grime, Where the rock-fall caught him with a sad surprise And made him one with all earth’s humblest creatures. With beauty of frail and waving fronds go wide, With their faces dissolved and deathly heads With whispering steps through the wildwood grasses, Or vanishing leaves that drift off with the wind, Where he sleeps with the dead. There, ringed with dark trees holy, She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids The radiant god ascends with warmth eternal, With monstrous fires aflame. Crowned thrice with cypress, endless times with laurel, With mystic earth, thereof for ever choking, Ring upon ring, with stone walls sevenfold deep, Are sick with memories awesome, eerie, fateful, With wings of beating purple flew to me Through sullen skies empurpled with vast flame. Held sway, with purple dreamlands all around. That glowed with fitful lights, and each one starred With signs unreadable, on each the shard Of some imprisoned thing with old despairs. And I drew back, but still the hand with stark, Yet twined around me with inhuman force. Quicksilver, pulsing with a deep soft tone With blood that had so curious a glow; Them fill the air with measureless strong beat— I knocked upon the portal till with clang With eyes of golden fury; while a score With bright-eyed ecstasy, exultant wrath, With formless terrors running through my mind? They burned me, bound me with deep-knotted ties; Though they, with cruel joy, had given me Caught me with safety but a league away. They dragged me back with never pause for rest. The windows burning bright with eldritch fires; Malefic, purposive, with alien force In that dark chamber, numb with terror, mute, A monstrous form surged on and searched with cry To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, 051.6 051.46 051.50 051.54 053.1 053.16 055.4 055.7 055.16 057.4 059.7 059.8 060.7 062.3 063.2 063.12 065.16 065.17 066.1 066.10 067.25 068.1 068.5 069.1 070.5 071.7 071.8 071.11 074.6 074.7 074.8 074.11 074.14 076.7 078.12 079.2 081.1 081.6 082.13 083.4 084.6 084.12 086.2 086.5 086.11 088.5 088.10 089.6 089.9 W 445 With all the dreadful cerements of the grave 090.2 With flapping tatters and long talons lean. 090.4 The rooted feet that walked with measured stride. 091.10 The branching arms that reached with taloned tips, 091.11 Then all the seas united with a roar 094.9 Now I am bored with all things brief and transitory, 096.1 With love, and life, and death, and even with ennui; 096.2 With the lithe Persian, 096.9 Great wealth have I, a kingdom own, with palaces for pleasure, 096.13 Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, 096.35 Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, 096.40 The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, 096.44 Now I am bored with all things present, all things olden, 096.55 With all things disagree, 096.63 Me, and I sicken with the languid unsurcease 096.65 My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, 096.76 The faithful, with far chaunting. 096.78 Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar! when with facile 096.82 Grace, true believers, with burnouses flowing gracile, 096.83 The hot, still air is sweet with heavy perfumes; 101.7 That tremble and shiver with passions that lately were? 101.12 The garden is still with a fever that passes all name; 101.17 With a sweet rapture of shame. 101.20 I find no rest in the passions with which I am shaken, 101.28 Although my flesh with many knives is slit. 103.4 With only rotting corpses lying by, 103.7 The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. 103.14 And both my hands were covered with that red, 106.9 With magic murmurs making 109.21 With wonder past all knowing, 109.25 With refluence of flame 109.30 And illumines with mystical light the eyes unseeing. 110.4 With ghostly winds that whisper to them, Awaken. 110.8 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning 112.1 We were present when space grew heavy with seeds of its own spawning. 112.3 We have dwelt with new suns and watched the old stars die; 112.6 With weary steps to the old, original end. 112.12 A princess are, with beauty lovelier 113.2 When Nielsen with a pen of magic drew 113.4 So lovely with its skin so fair; the grace 114.3 With you. and you so beautiful and fair. 114.14 Though every day were filled with benison 115.3 Though every hour were rich with a great store 115.5 There will be none with you to help you share it, 118.3 I come to men with unrequiting passion, 119.9 And I look on with clearer, colder eyes, 120.2 446 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Remember phrases with a vague surprise With the breath of the web-faced things asleep With the fresher tracks of cloven Concealed with opalescent mist whose fall And violet depths with flameful passions gleam. Are languorous with dreams of mighty doom, With her sweet self, she had no quarrels, In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice A single gardenia lies with delicate grace in The golden poppy glows in beauty with the light And it only rhymes with turtle...... I could never love a girl with such a rhyme! Peopled with ghosts of their invention, The janitors would drip with knowledge, Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. With each lesson came complete With scholastic ladies, Till with derrick they capped him, Drifting as leaves but urgent with a force Withdraw Withdraw till dawn comes gray. Withered With only the withered trees to watch us passing by; Is the rose to be withered and shrunken? From a trunk, that withered, blighted bole, But all the strange and withered things still hung My withered heart, stained as with vermeil and rich vair, Withering Dream, with the brown grass withering Withholden Delight be withholden? Within Within those precincts of the spectral night’s Within the pool so fathomless and dark. And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, They found him deep within an ancient cave Beyond the violet, within the red? Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. Within the limits of his nose, Without Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. Like cardinal numbers adding without end; Witnessed We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning To birth, we have witnessed the past and present blend; Wits To prove the brilliance of their wits, Witty That your words are clever, witty, Wizards The things that mirthful wizards killed Wizard’s Fermented in a wizard’s tomb. 120.3 125.3 126.14 127.3 127.10 127.13 128.37 129.6 129.13 134.11 135.11 135.12 138.14 138.20 138.28 140.3 140.6 145.3 147.11 096.84 035.2 043.31 045.2 093.11 096.76 009.11 033.32 011.15 011.20 034.16 059.1 088.2 111.8 138.25 111.8 115.2 112.1 112.10 138.10 135.5 030.47 030.20 W As if a wizard’s wand Woe Of bitter woe. Woes Gifts that repaid our journey’s woes, Woman Never has woman been loved as I shall love her, never Has man known the terrible glory of woman as I; No more, no more I know the fierce desire of woman, Will a woman be born, or a man ever live through whose soul such a madness and fury will sweep? Yet we like a woman came to cloy. Not woman, man, or child crawled in my lap. To forty thousand species, Woman There was a young woman I know Woman’s Meets the mysterious woman’s stare Womb Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? Women Strange, grave women dream of some strange pleasure And everywhere the women flinging Won Blue rubies won by stealth The love of girls more strange on stranger stars I won; We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Blue rubies won by stealth Wonder Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? Wonder and beauty and terror are hanging all over, The dying wonder of the world that is, With I past all knowing, We are deathless, O Love, and deific; we have known the wonder supernal: And wonder what we’re conning to. A model professorial wonder, Wondered Through space’s dead debris I wandered, wondered So huge the wings, I wondered what the bird And waited, wondered, though I did not know... Wonderland In Wonderland; Rothenstein’s portraits done with malice Wonders They gorged on wonders vanished, dead. Wondrous Slave and queen and dancing-girl, wondrous fair, And all the love and wondrous beauty of my beloved Strange wondrous jewels and diadems For songs as wondrous as this wondrous dream, Strange wondrous jewels and diadems She had a lover for her wondrous grace; Wondrously The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, Won’t And I hope that you won’t cry dear, Wood With a rare old vintage mellowed in wood! There was a crackle as of blazing wood, 447 034.3 013.24 049.26 003.37 003.38 007.55 043.16 046.38 075.11 140.9 144.1 055.15 017.12 006.3 049.23 012.20 013.18 046.39 067.20 043.25 101.16 102.7 109.25 112.13 138.18 138.31 036.11 079.4 122.8 129.6 030.34 006.18 007.19 012.24 028.11 067.24 099.13 044.7 135.2 022.10 106.7 448 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Woodland For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? Woods Twilight upon the hills and woods was dying, And over the woods in ecstasy, and swelling Outlined the revellers dancing through the woods, They are curious things that hide in the woods Of the woods to a spot forlorn, Wood-Winds And wood-winds lightly grieve Word An unknown golden tongue where every word All nature whispers but her one word: Death. Words What words convey how closelier she follows Are merely words that mean no more than life. These things I love, yet words can never tell That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. Or think that those sweet words were meant to be Them, and the words so beautiful and sweet That your words are clever, witty, Or any other words to jar ’em; And think the words they drop are jewels. Working Working hard for pieces-of-eight, Works And leave behind me all the weary works of man, Workshop Throughout the sculptors’ workshop, uncomplete World Lovely as any girl the world has seen, Of half-gods outcast from the world of man? His cosmic challenge in an alien world. And by a hideous world was crucified Her world and sky. When time had ceased, when every world was riven, And its death is the death of the world. The world is wondrously quiet, so quiet, prophetic of day, Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Shadowy night and the world to cross— Bearing the world upon his broken shoulders, The world is an opium-dream; Quiet hangs over all the world; in adoration The world of which no tale is handed down. He barricades himself against the world: I dreamed the waters of the world had died, The dying wonder of the world that is, The real world dreams, O Love, my world is pouring O Love, the world so shadowy and dim To all the world; and dearer still are those The cat on the fence, and world conditions, Worlds That I could picture worlds I’ve never known, 015.34 015.1 015.13 015.26 062.1 065.6 109.3 028.2 102.9 041.9 102.4 114.9 120.4 121.4 121.9 135.5 137.12 138.2 142.6 096.98 092.2 008.11 015.36 024.14 026.7 035.4 036.37 043.24 044.7 056.1 056.5 056.9 059.2 064.1 066.5 068.14 069.2 095.1 102.7 109.20 109.33 110.9 117.5 142.4 025.2 W That blasted all the worlds that were. And forget worlds olden? Amid all worlds of time and dust begotten And farther back, when worlds were in their dawning. I sought not, nor in worlds that only seem Through all the space of worlds in time and spirit, Of secret worlds that have no name or place. That filled all worlds, all space; vibrations freeing All present, past, and future worlds; and day, and night; Nor vestige of the worlds of old; and now, The worlds of sleep and waking, A wind from worlds beyond blows out of foreign places In splendor of birth and dawning there where the worlds begin: Moves from worlds without to enchanted worlds within. And oblivion saw strange worlds begin to glow. From the dust of forgotten worlds to whole new systems leaping Thought fashions worlds that earth can never share, Worm Of worm that multiplied on worm A worm that was born of the deep sea-slime, Not a thing disputed the lordly worm As deathless as ever a worm can be, And the worm is king for eternity, Where the little lithe worm still tumbles and crawls, Worm-King Of the white worm-king and the fat white fold, Wormlike To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, Worm-Queen On the throne a king for its worm-queen pines Worms All the flesh on which fat worms have fed; In my own decomposition. Thick white worms have lolled I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep, I feel the worms that leap Worms now have ceased to gloat, The worms with endless, spoiling flesh are glad. Planks riddled through by worms, that he is wise Worn Slowly I climbed the worn old attic stairs Worse To make my sufferings worse if I should dine. Worship Our worship went beyond our own dim comprehension, All night in worship and in love I lay; Unto the utter end I worship thee, beloved, Unto the end I worship and adore; I worship thee and ever worship more. Dreaming majestic dreams, I worship thee As gods might worship Beauty marvellous. Worship thee, knowing that I only dream. To worship where she goes. Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? 449 030.8 033.30 036.7 036.25 036.46 037.2 070.8 076.8 096.71 107.13 109.17 111.3 111.6 111.8 112.4 112.9 116.7 054.27 057.3 057.11 057.18 057.19 062.4 057.23 089.9 125.19 054.13 054.23 054.35 054.36 054.43 103.14 120.6 074.1 087.12 007.29 007.38 007.57 007.58 007.60 008.3 008.4 008.14 041.8 043.27 450 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Worshipped But all night long we worshipped at our pagan altar, Worth You only live when all worth living’s lost. The blood’s full worth. Than which no love can have supremer worth. Things of small worth to me. And of the empty dreams that were not worth desiring, I know that nothing is worth while, all things are quite For things external, but of higher worth, Would For we would keep the pleasure and the torment burning, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; All night I dreamed the one long night would last for ever, I dreamed the night would never turn to day. For thee, the gods a planet would destroy. That in the later days a boy would come, There is a language I would fain employ, Would use that tongue’s undreamed-of ecstasies Whose perfect euphony would be as clear All it would find was a plump drowned rat All things that you would know. What sight in later hours would haply greet Would maggots in my starved, gaunt body loll To reach the haven I would never find. Tortures would mark the finish of my quest. Into the moonlight, Cyrenaya, I would go They would not burn me quickly on their spit; Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair? That all would pass, that nothing would abide. Yet would it be no Eden to entice. And I would let it in complete eclipse Beauty possesses, but would not care I am a fool, for only fools would trust The acids would not matter, nor I rue She loved no man, so she would boast, The essence of her is here—but I wish she would hasten! The janitors would drip with knowledge, Would rant and dream and drowse and doze. Would chant their perfect lessons with ’m. Would be as old as papa Perkins, Why, there each young M.A. would go to, For surely none would think of spurning And Mr. Briggs would watch their English, And every error, he would single-ish! Wouldst All things that thou wouldst know. Wound Wan hands and heads that had no trace of wound, Wounds They slit me till a hundred new wounds bled; Woven Thou hast woven a spell, was the chantment for only a moment ere worship and love were to perish? 007.17 017.20 038.8 051.49 096.18 096.32 096.67 116.10 007.13 007.14 007.39 007.40 008.12 026.2 028.1 028.10 028.12 057.15 067.42 079.6 085.3 085.12 086.4 096.97 103.5 105.8 107.11 115.11 115.13 116.2 121.1 121.13 128.9 129.16 138.20 138.26 138.28 138.30 138.36 138.37 138.39 138.40 012.42 104.3 084.5 043.27 W Footprints of a man-bat woven Wraiths Vainly recalling old wraiths of memory, Wrath With bright-eyed ecstasy, exultant wrath, Wreath Flesh and the grape and a wreath of vine! The wreath, the garland, and the rose, Wreaths Garlands of rose and violet, and wreaths of vine; Wriggle And wriggle through my gray Write Ah, God, that I could draw instead of write, Writhe Mandrakes writhe and witch-fires burn, Writhed While ghostly presences writhed wan and weary Writhing Where writhing trees loomed tall to shroud the sky, Demonic revel holds dark, writhing forms in thrall, To limbs alive with wormlike, writhing fur, Wrong In search of vengeance for an ancient wrong Oh heart, cease beating; eyes, close; sight, be wrong: Of right or wrong, They’re always right, they can’t be wrong, Wrongs Were better than their hideous, measure wrongs. Wrought What total purpose wrought such total doom; The hands that wrought it vanished in its power, 451 126.13 006.6 082.13 023.2 049.24 015.22 054.31 025.1 125.10 045.11 011.2 061.7 089.9 024.3 073.12 133.69 138.5 080.8 036.12 076.11 Y Ye Yea Year Yearn Yearning Yearns Years Though ye colours pass, though his limbs be fleet, Yea, thy lips that softly smile, Yea, all the bitter night I sought the bitter rapture, And we were love-sick, yea, and sick with all love’s poison, Yea, we would love till all our senses swoon; Yea, all love’s lyric horror all were sweet; Yea, love and more than love were all the long night’s portion, Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings Thine eyes that for strange raptures yearn, 046.47 004.16 007.3 007.9 007.14 007.22 007.33 007.59 013.3 004.6 From Pan’s wild pipes, the god’s own song of yearning For ever his heart is filled with yearning, Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, For a promised trysting, a god long due, she yearns, Let us forget the passing of years, The years of the past have long since flown, The tale is told of years of long ago. The years and love are gone, and thou art gone, beloved, Yea, all the barren years that linger in their passing, Of the oblivious years. A thousand and a thousand years ago, The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings In other stars in old, oblivious years I sought What did it matter a thousand years ago What will it matter a thousand years from now A thousand million years ago, I searched the years that hold all things immortal Of wasted years; In the years of the past, in the coming and passing of lovers and love and the paths love has taken, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Since ten thousand years ago. And years of striving in one moment ended. In all the years by time begun, A thousand and a thousand years ago, As all the years of Hercules’ great labors, A thousand and a thousand years have fled; The trees, the birds, the fleeting springs, the years, The years since Time began, the sum of thought, They know that it will take me years to die, And you will never know what years drift by. 015.31 018.9 036.41 019.7 004.52 004.55 007.48 007.53 007.59 009.24 012.40 013.3 013.9 026.1 026.5 030.38 036.17 039.15 043.13 043.15 047.10 051.7 055.6 067.40 073.10 099.7 102.10 102.17 103.3 118.4 Y Years’ Yellow Yet Yew Yield The years away intended, but for leaping Still live a hundred years ago, She has been swallowed in the years’ long flow. As of a yellow corpse about to speak.... Moonstruck, voiceless, yet their sorceress-eyes agleam, And she was cool, yet hers was all the passion, Where silence ruled yet something waited me The years have passed, yet each long year in passing brings Yet everywhere, in every region, there was nought And yet, in all my travels I could only find And farther still when life was yet to come, I read, yet on my trail I wandered still; Borne onward yet by that same ceaseless yearning, And longer ways before you yet to wander For feast and wine, the grass stained darkly yet; So little, yet to do so well, Yet the radiance is gone from thy face, is it only the refluent glory and glow that relume thee, In the years yet to be, in the slumbering lovers and loves of the future, the passions to waken, Yet it seems that a veil rises slowly Yet we like a woman came to cloy. I am the colour yet to be; Or gold that never yet no man befriended, Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste Of them, bound, yet magnificently free; Yet all who gaze upon him walk beside him. She wakens with the dew yet cool upon her eyelids Traveler: Not now, not yet. I go my way, Where all things are, yet are not; time and space For what, I did not know, yet tense, on guard Yet twined around me with inhuman force. The strange cocoon, not living yet nor dead Yet, when toward farther desolate wastes I stole, Its branches leafless, yet a budding hand Rubies I yet will place in that jet hair above And yet I could not move. There came a creak, And fair things yet more fair, And beauty yet unknown, So faint the dream, O Love, and yet so fair. He who may lift the spell, and yet I seem These things I love, yet words can never tell Yet would it be no Eden to entice. I come, weary yet bearing still this load. Yet saw no cause why gossip seized her. Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, Blood-brother, boon companion to the yew, Yield his body unto dust, THE POET (wildly): I yield! I yield! Thy lips, Oh Death! 453 119.5 138.17 099.8 104.13 006.22 007.7 011.5 013.3 013.11 013.15 036.26 036.36 036.41 037.9 040.7 042.10 043.3 043.15 043.33 046.38 046.42 051.3 051.5 051.60 059.16 066.1 067.51 070.11 074.3 074.14 075.3 085.7 093.5 096.47 104.10 109.23 109.26 110.16 113.10 114.9 115.11 124.8 128.32 146.1 068.2 004.46 012.53 454 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Yield grace to only one, deny the rest? Yielded The poppy yielded you demented dreams, Thou hast webbed me with wonder and yielded me rapture of soul; is it passion or poison I cherish? She has yielded to the kiss of night, Yonder Unknown what goal, if any goal, lies yonder Yore But now that time is gone of yore You Solemn all you picture them, solemn and so luring, Leave them to enchantment where you left them lingering What nightmare bore you, hateful blight of red? You flare up in the all-consuming flame, You drift along the desert’s burning sands; You are the brand that sears, the mark of shame, Whence came you, spawn of what abysmal womb? The poppy yielded you demented dreams, Death-fevers mottled you with lurid shades. Mars poured on you the bane of baleful beams, You stain vermilion vipers in dank glades. You only live when all worth living’s lost. Except to blind you;— Where shall I find you? So long, so far, so distant have you flown So endlessly, so wearily, you paced Eternity between you and your haven; And longer ways before you yet to wander You will come back to me, You will return; You will come back to me, lost lover, You will come back some day, lost lover, You will return; I promised you a villanelle, You caught me, bound me, with a spell, I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle. I promised you a villanelle; What though you walk by Mammon unattended, Yet do you leave the dark and lonely waste What though one kingdom each of you forsake, You, and you leave the aimless labyrinth Surely shall Aphrodite give you greeting, Of water, fire, earth and air attend you, The elements their four-fold essence send you, There was none before you, I adore you, Only you. After you. Death: I offer you such dreams As you have never known, I offer you the moan 119.11 017.13 043.25 058.1 037.11 054.51 006.17 006.21 017.1 017.5 017.6 017.7 017.12 017.13 017.14 017.15 017.16 017.20 033.38 033.40 037.1 037.5 037.8 037.9 039.2 039.3 039.7 039.19 039.21 042.1 042.4 042.6 042.12 042.18 051.1 051.5 051.31 051.33 051.36 051.40 051.41 052.1 052.3 052.4 052.9 067.1 067.2 067.3 Y I offer you my whole vast Hadean domain For you to reign. Traveler: I scorn you, Death, I can not bear you. Go! Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: I offer you the wealth I offer you phantasmal gems Traveler: I scorn you, Death. Death: Oh Traveler, these I offer you: And Aphrodite, every dream you seek; All things that you might love, All things that you would know. Traveler: I scorn you, Death. For I will help you find— Have you forgot?— Death: However far you go, I wait. You’ve come again. You keep me company here, You drift upon the moonlight hovering near Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear What form you have, for always you appear And though you never talk (do you have tongue?) Unclothe you, scent you with nard, myrrh, olibanum, Make you fair for admiring. Dance, Cyrenaya, while I watch you swaying slowly, And if you mesmerize And sinuous, then I will raise you from the lowly And if you charm me not, and I grow weary of Than you. I have drained all delights from long impresses Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! Binds you, O Love. I know there are no princesses, but you These are the things I love you for: the gray Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face That’s natural artifice in you; the way You move: the unexpected things you say; The subtle pleasure that you give to me, For, and the loveliness you watch so well. With you. and you so beautiful and fair. Nor I desire it if it held not you; For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. You are the fairest of the lovely whom How fair you were, if you were only fair, I love you for the charm earth gave to you, I love you for the realms of endless view, I love you for the beauty all can see, You care for that warm house of all your own, There will be none with you to help you share it, And you will never know what years drift by. And it may be that you will find it lonely, 455 067.5 067.6 067.7 067.10 067.17 067.18 067.22 067.26 067.27 067.32 067.41 067.42 067.43 067.45 067.46 067.53 077.2 077.3 077.6 077.7 077.11 096.35 096.36 096.37 096.39 096.41 096.43 096.52 098.8 109.40 113.1 114.1 114.2 114.4 114.5 114.10 114.12 114.14 115.12 115.14 116.1 116.3 116.9 116.11 116.13 117.2 118.3 118.4 118.5 456 You’d You’ll Young A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei And it may be that you will find it fair; And it may be that you will find it only An emptiness not knowing you are there. Now wherefor do you make this larger room You will become? It seems so strange to me That you make these to that a sacrifice, You proved illusion not more strong than oaken For you have taught a thousand things to me, Their ravage, if they had not come from you. Only you, and the past, my dearest She claimed that thoughts, not deeds, pervert you— Here at the house you dwelled Here, by the hand you held For you were token. I am telling you goodbye, dear, And I hope that you won’t cry dear, If I never take you anywhere again; Though I know that you are pretty, You have never been inspiring to my pen. Can’t you see that I’d be able “Miss Shere, are you a kind person?” “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” “I’m asking you, Miss Shere. Are you a cruel person?” “What are you talking about?” “Us, you and me. What matters except us?” “A great deal matters. Who are you?” “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” “Well, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll be seeing you.” “You certainly will.” And you and I Farewell, good friend. You leave us now. And yet, As you begin your final travel, know How greatly you have guided us. We go Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Only do we who knew you feel the source, And past the winding river’s end you gaze, I take the bridgeway you already know. That I confused the words you’d plainly spoken. In my domain alone you’ll capture Drink! For you’ll soon have the earth for a cover! There is a room, Beloved, that you’ll inherit; We were won and lost of a mad young boy. Of pagany, divinely young Apollo, She lifts her young faun face to greet the flushing sky, bids Oh little creature, whether old or young, And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier We are one with the stars, Beloved, and witnessed the young sun’s dawning 118.6 118.7 118.8 118.9 118.12 118.13 120.5 120.10 121.14 123.19 128.27 132.1 132.3 132.6 135.1 135.2 135.3 135.4 135.6 135.8 139.1 139.2 139.3 139.6 139.7 139.8 139.12 139.15 139.16 143.7 146.1 146.2 146.4 146.5 146.7 146.8 147.4 147.14 120.4 067.48 098.1 118.1 046.39 051.44 066.3 077.9 096.50 112.1 Y Your 457 And young Prince Charming rides in quest of her 113.7 Why, there each young M.A. would go to, 138.36 There was a young woman I know 144.1 There was a young man—such a pity!— 145.1 Lost amid their dreamlands, your captured phantoms dream. 006.24 What evil source your awful scarlet flood? 017.2 Whence came your charnel hue of pain and blood? 017.4 In your eyes, there is rapture 033.18 In your lips that were tender 033.19 And then I turned, and looked within your eyes, 034.16 Winging your vast way lonely and alone 037.3 Until your birthsite was become effaced. 037.7 Eternity between you and your haven; 037.8 Pause, rest, turn back while still your wings are strong, 037.13 Beauty more vital for your hearts to capture, 051.13 The ever fresh design of your own fashion. 051.28 A greater wealth your greater love assures 051.32 And by your side, in beauty’s own rebirth 051.43 In your steps on the wakened ways of earth 051.45 Of Hymen and the gods that watch your way. 051.63 Your rotten breath 067.8 Await your kingly head. 067.16 The face that haunts your heart and mind. 067.47 Your soul’s desire, all lasting rapture, 067.49 And watch, or seem to watch, me for your face 077.4 Your limbs, if limbs you have; nor is it clear 077.6 Make this your home for I will make it yours; 077.10 The green-flecked amber of your smoky-lidded eyes. 096.38 Me from my ennui with your body naked wholly, 096.40 The kohl that shades your eyes, your breasts with henna tipped, 096.44 And your mouth poppy-lipped, 096.45 And if your kisses, like most kisses, mean not love, 096.46 Your body slender-hipped. 096.48 But I grow weary of your sensuous caresses, 096.49 And of your lush young beauty I grow wearier 096.50 Of your bright lips, all pleasure that your flesh possesses, 096.53 Drink! For the red-stained lips of your lover! 098.3 Drink! Till you fall in your wine-full sleep! 098.8 Your eyes, Beloved, are filled with the beauty of strange stars glowing 111.5 A wind from the spheres that through your shadowy hair is blowing 111.7 Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face 114.2 Your hair’s soft brown of gold; your hands that trace 114.6 Of lips too tender; your precise array. 114.8 For you, or for one kiss from your soft lips. 115.14 Your moods are dear to me, and all the ways 117.1 You care for that warm house of all your own, 117.2 Of modes that will not match despite your pains. 117.8 Your imperfections are as fair to me 117.9 As your more supernatal beauty, since 117.10 458 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Twice excellent; thus your slight flaws evince Delight in sudden vagaries of your mind. And all your days, and mine, a vain device. I am not sorry to have been your lover, Your polished phrases spoken carefully, That your words are clever, witty, If your name were only Mabel But alas! Your name is Myrtle, “I beg your pardon, I don’t know you.” Means ditched by your girl and left by your friend, As you begin your final travel, know Ennobled by your grace, your love—beside you, Joining your journey, brings our living light to hold you, guide you. Enriching us, of your own everlasting glow. You’re “Tut-tut, Mr. Forchamer. You’re not. You’re homely.” “You’re offensive. That’s what you are.” Yours Spontaneous as yours, Make this your home for I will make it yours; Yourself Green eyes you hide yourself behind; your face Youth Youth and Song and Joy; Every youth and maiden must For Youth, and Spring, and the woodland feast of Pan? For youth, a ravished poppy’s petals blown: Joys that pass and youth too fleet, Youths Beautiful youths have long lain dead You’ve You’ve come again. You keep me company here, 117.12 117.14 118.14 120.9 121.2 135.5 135.7 135.10 139.2 142.8 146.2 146.5 146.7 146.9 139.10 139.12 052.6 077.10 114.2 004.30 004.45 015.34 040.6 100.5 004.27 077.2 INDEX OF POEM TITLES After Bacchus, Eros After Sleep Aftermath Amphitrite Aphrodite At the Bacchic Revel Aubade Awakening 040 070 101 020 019 023 032 016 Bacchanalia Bell, The Borealis 015 094 034 Capture Challenger, The Chant to the Dead Chaos Resolved Classicist, The Cocoon, The Corpse Speaks, The Corroding Acids Creatures, The Credo Cypress-Bog, The 086 024 108 050 137 075 054 121 105 102 126 Dark Odyssey Dead Mistress, The Deadly Calm, The Death and the Poet: a Fragment Death and the Traveler: a Fragment “Dig and delve” Doom Dream Changes, The Dream that Dies, The Dream, The Dream-Horror Drink! Drinking Song, A 036 099 120 012 067 143 107 113 063 112 103 098 022 Ecstasy Elegy Epilude Epitaph to a Lady 003 146 052 128 460 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei Epithalamium Escape Eye, The 051 085 083 Fantastic Sculpture Fata Morgana Five Lords, The Fling Wide the Roses For the Perishing Aphrodite Forest Shapes From the Shadowlands of Memory Futility 092 033 046 097 043 062 027 026 Glow, The Golden Poppy Greatest Regret, The Grip of Evil Dreams, The 109 134 025 104 Head, The Hermaphroditus Hungry Flowers, The 073 018 082 “I am as mad as mad can be,” I am Man In Madrikor In Memoriam: George Sterling In Memoriam: No Name In the Attic In the Pit Incubus Ishmael: I II 142 133 010 014 035 074 087 058 068 069 Largo Let us Love To-night [Limerick] Lines Little Creature, The Little Gods Wait, The Look Homeward, Angel Lost Atlantis 031 004 145 132 077 130 037 047 Marmora Metal God, The Monster Gods, The Monstrous Form Moon-Glen Altar, The Morning of a Nymph, The Morning Song 125 076 141 089 065 066 044 Index of Poem Titles 461 My Lady Hath Two Lovely Lips 100 Nightmare Nightmare in Green 029 090 Old Companions, The On some Drawings Overtone, The 072 006 111 Pedagogues Phantom Philomela Plague Ship, The Poet’s Lament, The Poet’s Language, The Pool, The Portrait of a Lady During a Half Hour Wait While She Finished Dressing Prehistoric Huntsman, The Prey, The Purple 138 053 021 048 135 028 078 129 059 079 071 Queen in Other Skies, A 127 Rack, The Red Red Specter, The 084 017 106 Sanctity and Sin Satiation School of Seduction, The Second Beauty, The September Hill Shadowy Night Sleeper, The Solitary Somewhere Past Ispahan Song of Autumn, The Song of Oblivion, The Song, The Statues, The Street Scene... Surrender 007 013 140 116 147 056 064 131 096 002 009 110 081 139 114 Testament of Desertion, A There was a Smell of Dandelions “There was a young woman I know” This Larger Room Though all my Days To Lucasta on her Birthday 123 136 144 118 115 041 462 A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei To Myrrhiline To the God of my Fathers Torturers, The Tree, The 008 124 080 Twice Excellent Perfection 093 117 Ultimate Vision, The Under the Grass Unknown Color, The 095 038 088 Vain Warning Valerian Villanelle à la Mode The Voice of Beauty, The Voyagers’ Return to Tyre, The 005 030 042 001 049 Water Sprite What Followed me? Whispering Knoll, The Witches’ Sabbath With Cat-like Tread Woman Answers, The Woman at the Window, The Woodland Pool, The Worm-King, The 060 091 045 061 122 119 055 011 057 You will Come back 039