Saturday Night Alice

...
Ah, come soon! my arms are empty, and so weary for your beauty,
I am thirsty for the music of your voice.
Come to make the marshes joyous with the sweetness of your presence,
Let your nearing feet bid all the sands rejoice!

My hands, my lips are feverish with the longing and the waiting
And no softness of the twilight soothes their heat,
Till I see your radiant eyes, shining stars beneath the starlight,
Till I kiss the slender coolness of your feet.

Ah, loveliest, most reluctant, when you lay yourself beside me
All the planets reel around me--fade away,
And the sands grow dim, uncertain,--I stretch out my hands towards you
While I try to speak but know not what I say!

I am faint with love and longing, and my burning eyes are gazing
Where the furtive Jackals wage their famished strife,
Oh, your shadow on the mangroves! and your step upon the sandhills,--
This is the loveliest evening of my Life!

There is one God: Mahomed his Prophet. Had I his power
I would take the topmost peaks of the snow-clad Himalayas,
And would range them around your dwelling, during the heats of summer,
To cool the airs that fan your serene and delicate presence,
Had I the power.

Your courtyard should ever be filled with the fleetest of camels
Laden with inlaid armour, jewels and trappings for horses,
Ripe dates from Egypt, and spices and musk from Arabia.
And the sacred waters of Zem-Zem well, transported thither,
Should bubble and flow in your chamber, to bathe the delicate
Slender and wayworn feet of my Lord, returning from travel,
Had I the power.

Fine woven silk, from the further East, should conceal your beauty,
Clinging around you in amorous folds; caressive, silken,
Beautiful long-lashed, sweet-voiced Persian boys should, kneeling, serve you,
And the floor beneath your sandalled feet should be smooth and golden,
Had I the power.

And if ever your clear and stately thoughts should turn to women,
Kings' daughters, maidens, should be appointed to your caresses,
That the youth and the strength of my Lord might never be wasted
In light or sterile love; but enrich the world with his children.
Had I the power.

Whilst I should sit in the outer court of the Water Palace
To await the time when you went forth, for Pleasure or Warfare,
Descending the stairs rose crowned, or armed and arrayed in purple,--
To mark the place where your steps have fallen, and kiss the footprints,
Had I the power.

Since, Oh, Beloved, you are not even faithful
To me, who loved you so, for one short night,
For one brief space of darkness, though my absence
Did but endure until the dawning light;

Since all your beauty--which was _mine_--you squandered
On _that_ which now lies dead across your door;
See here this knife, made keen and bright to kill you.
You shall not see the sun rise any more.

Lie still! Lie still! In all the empty village
Who is there left to hear or heed your cry?
All are gone to labour in the valley,
Who will return before your time to die?

No use to struggle; when I found you sleeping,
I took your hands and bound them to your side,
And both these slender feet, too apt at straying,
Down to the cot on which you lie are tied.

Lie still, Beloved; that dead thing lying yonder,
I hated and I killed, but love is sweet,
And you are more than sweet to me, who love you,
Who decked my eyes with dust from off your feet.

Give me your lips; Ah, lovely and disloyal
Give me yourself again; before you go
Down through the darkness of the Great, Blind Portal,
All of life's best and basest you must know.

Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile
I held you gently, as one holds a flower:
But now, God knows, what use to still be tender
To one whose life is done within an hour?

I hurt? What then? Death will not hurt you, dearest,
As you hurt me, for just a single night,
You call me cruel, who laid my life in ruins
To gain one little moment of delight.

Look up, look out, across the open doorway
The sunlight streams. The distant hills are blue.
Look at the pale, pink peach trees in our garden,
Sweet fruit will come of them;--but not for you.

The fair, far snow, upon those jagged mountains
That gnaw against the hard blue Afghan sky
Will soon descend, set free by summer sunshine.
You will not see those torrents sweeping by.

The world is not for you. From this day forward,
You must lie still alone; who would not lie
Alone for one night only, though returning
I was, when earliest dawn should break the sky.

There lies my lute, and many strings are broken,
Some one was playing it, and some one tore
The silken tassels round my Hookah woven;
Some one who plays, and smokes, and loves, no more!

Some one who took last night his fill of pleasure,
As I took mine at dawn! The knife went home
Straight through his heart! God only knows my rapture
Bathing my chill hands in the warm red foam.

And so I pain you? This is only loving,
Wait till I kill you! Ah, this soft, curled hair!
Surely the fault was mine, to love and leave you
Even a single night, you are so fair.

Cold steel is very cooling to the fervour
Of over passionate ones, Beloved, like you.
Nay, turn your lips to mine. Not quite unlovely
They are as yet, as yet, though quite untrue.

What will your brother say, to-night returning
With laden camels homewards to the hills,
Finding you dead, and me asleep beside you,
Will he awake me first before he kills?

For I shall sleep. Here on the cot beside you
When you, my Heart's Delight, are cold in death.
When your young heart and restless lips are silent,
Grown chilly, even beneath my burning breath.

When I have slowly drawn my knife across you,
Taking my pleasure as I see you swoon,
I shall sleep sound, worn out by love's last fervour,
And then, God grant your kinsmen kill me soon!