Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
The Flower of FlameRobert Nichols
From the sheer deep where darkness lies,
Till to the shoulder rock they swell
With a slow cumulance of sighs.
From the blind caves of your unrest;
Loose your load utterly at length
Over the moonlight-marbled breast.
Nor let your love-locks be withdrawn
Till round the world-horizon flowers
The harsh inevitable dawn.
The sun-shaft pierce
The smoking weather;
The hail-blasts fierce
That waste so cold—
Irised sheets of spume,
Wild welter of gold!
Were backward tossed,
Their cruel crying
In uproar lost.
Her fettering cloak,
Made of her wide
Strong arms a yoke;
Outstrip the hours—
It soon will be over,
This love of ours!”
Kisses like cries,
Gazed as to trace
Light in blind eyes;
Headlong away,
Before nor after
Ever so gay!
Chastened and meek.
Side by side taking our way,
With what anguish we seek
To dare each to face the other or even to speak!
Through a vaporous shine;
Or overwhelms itself in dark rifts
On the sea’s far line.
Sheer light falls in a single sword like a sign.
Like a corpse that awakes,
Slowly heaves up its lustreless head.
Crowned with weeds and snakes,
To strike at the shore, baring fangs as it breaks.
Aims at our love.
Gone is our ignorant mirth,
Love like speech of the dove.
The Sword and the Snake have seen and proclaim now, “Enough!”
Hides her sad head;
The dwindled water tinkles and grieves
In the stream’s black bed.
And where now, where are you sleeping?
Flickers or floats;
High in still air the flurrying bats
Repeat their wee notes.
And where now, where are you sleeping?
Where quiet crowd,
By the toil of an upper whirlwind driven,
Dark legions of cloud.
In whose arms now are you sleeping?
The world a tomb;
Far out at sea long thunders roll
From gloom to dim gloom:
In whose arms now are you sleeping?
Close overhead;
The foreland’s bell-buoy begins to clang
As if for the dead:
Awake they where you are sleeping?
With tearing sound
Bright bolt volleys on flaring bolt;
Wave and cloud clash; through deep, through vault,
Huge thunders rebound!
But they wake not where you are sleeping.