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Show THE BATHER ' By Geoffrey Cookson. Between desire and beauty there is war, Old as the ageless strife of sea and shore, And there are greedy pools, where gendereth The double-headed snake of love and death, When, flesh to flesh, love sows a loveless thing. Here with the waves is neither surfeiting; Nor gain nor loss, but the light give and take Of bubble kisses that in laughter break; And that's the gentle way of Love. The sea Is tenderer than mortal lovers be, Knows no such hell; but on his breast Love lies Still virginal brow, cheek, and breast, and thighs; He may unclasp about her body bright The wave-flung veil, whose weft is chrysolite, Lift high her slippery body, or let sink, Low as a bride's on passion's trembling brink. And yet be no despoiler of chaste dreams. Down the long flow of shoreward-racing streams Into a molten twilight she may pass, As through the mould of an enchanted glass, With her own mlrorred loveliness made one. The sky her tent, her armorer the sun, Greaved with wet light about her striving knees In Amazon' 'n flight from foaming seas, She gives her gracious body to the air, Thrice vestal for her bath of love; and fair, As some 'bright Vision, none 'may now behold, , Pure as the deep's unquarrled crystals cold. The Nation. A |
