Love and Death

IN woodlands of the bright and early world, When love was to himself yet new and warm And stainless, played like morning with a flower Ruru with his young bride Priyumvada. Fresh-cheeked and dew-eyed white Priyumvada Opened her budded heart of crimson bloom To love, to Ruru; Ruru, a happy flood Of passion round a lotus dancing thrilled, Blinded with his soul's waves Priyumvada. To him the earth was a bed for this sole flower, To her all the world was filled with his embrace. Wet with new rains the morning earth, released From her fierce centuries and burning suns, Lavished her breath in greenness; poignant flowers Thronged all her eager breast, and her young arms Cradled a childlike bounding life that played And would not cease, nor ever weary grew Of her bright promise; for all was joy and breeze And perfume, colour and bloom and ardent rays Of living, and delight desired the world. Then Earth was quick and pregnant tamelessly; A free and unwalled race possessed her plains Whose hearts uncramped by bonds, whose unspoiled thoughts At once replied to light. Foisoned (sic) the fields; Lonely and rich the forests and the swaying Of those unnumbered tops affected men With thoughts to their vast music kin. Undammed The virgin rivers moved towards the sea, And mountains yet unseen and peoples vague Winged young imagination like an eagle To strange beauty remote. And Ruru felt The sweetness of the early earth as sap All through him, and short life an aeon made p. 2 By boundless possibility, and love, Sweetest of all unfathomable love, A glory untired. As a bright bird comes flying From airy extravagance to his own home, And breasts his mate, and feels her all his goal, So from boon sunlight and the fresh chill wave Which swirled and lapped between the slumbering fields, From forest pools and wanderings mid leaves Through emerald ever-new discoveries, Mysterious hillsides ranged and buoyant-swift Races with our wild brothers in the meads, Came Ruru back to the white-bosomed girl, Strong-winged to pleasure. She all fresh and new Rose to him, and he plunged into her charm. For neither to her honey and poignancy Artlessly interchanged, nor any limit To the sweet physical delight of her He found. Her eyes like deep and infinite wells Lured his attracted soul, and her touch thrilled Not lightly, though so light; the joy prolonged And sweetness of the lingering of her lips Was every time a nectar of surprise To her lover; her smooth-gleaming shoulder bared In darkness of her hair showed jasmine-bright, While her kissed bosom by rich tumults stirred Was a moved sea that rocked beneath his heart, Then when her lips had made him blind, soft siege Of all her unseen body to his rule Betrayed the ravishing realm of her white limbs, An empire for the glory of a God. He knew not whether he loved most her smile, Her causeless tears or little angers swift, Whether held wet against him from the bath Among her kindred lotuses, her cheeks Soft to his lips and dangerous happy breasts That vanquished all his strength with their desire, Meeting his absence with her sudden face, Or when the leaf-hid bird at night complained Near their wreathed arbour on the moonlit lake, Sobbing delight out from her heart of bliss, p. 3 Or in his clasp of rapture laughing low Of his close bosom bridal-glad and pleased With passion and this fiery play of love, Or breaking off like one who thinks of grief, Wonderful melancholy in her eyes Grown liquid and with wayward sorrow large, Thus he in her found a warm world of sweets, And lived of ecstasy secure, nor deemed Any new hour could match that early bliss. But Love has joys for spirits born divine More bleeding-lovely than his thornless rose. That day he had left, while yet the east was dark, Rising, her bosom and into the river Swam out, exulting in the sting and swift Sharp-edged desire around his limbs, and sprang Wet to the bank, and streamed into the wood.