Title: The Feather Bed
Author: Graves, Robert
Language: English
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THE FEATHER BED

by

ROBERT GRAVES

With a cover design by William Nicholson



Printed and Published by
Leonard & Virginia Woolf
at the Hogarth Press
Hogarth House Richmond
1923



_INTRODUCTORY LETTER_



INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO JOHN RANSOME, THE AMERICAN POET.


My dear Ransome,

Will you accept the dedication of this poem which seems naturally
yours? It was more than a year writing without losing much of the
excitement of the original scheme, but when on the cooling of inspiration
constructional flaws appeared, these proved to be beyond help of riveting
and surface tinkering, so the edition is small and very few review
copies will go out. Still the poem is a necessary signpost to those
friends of mine who have found the change between the two halves of my
recent collection of lyrics, _Whipperginny_, inexplicably abrupt: and
though dissatisfied I am not ashamed. It would be as well, from other
considerations altogether, not to let the honest burghers of Nashville,
Tenn., already scandalized by your _Poems about God_, see a copy of the
_Feather-bed_: but if this should happen and they demand an explanation,
tell them that I have no anticonstitutional intentions. Explain that
it is a study of a fatigued mind in a fatigued body and under the
stress of an abnormal conflict, that they can read it, if they will,
as a cautionary tale after the style of John Bunyan’s unregenerate _Mr
Badman_, only that Badman was unregenerate (wasn’t he?) to the last,
while I leave my young man in the throes of nightmare. Assure them that
neither does the author nor in a more normal mood would the hero of the
poem himself imagine convent life to be what it here seems to be; but
that the staggering rebuff to the young man’s typical bullying attitude
in love leads him to invent this monstrous libel in compensation; which
libel is merely flattery to his own wounded pride.

The psychological interest of the piece for me, now I have finished, is
in the way that the logical argument broken by circlings of associative
thought, all however relevant to the emotional disturbance, is
continually being caught up again with an effort by the drowsy intellect.
When at last the sour grapes idea, with its accompanying fantastics, has
determined a reasonable and apparently final decision of rupture both
with the girl herself and with the traditional religion she represents,
the effort relaxes and the mind is overborne in sleep by nightmares, its
revolutionary enthusiasm flattened by the reaction of tradition. The
Morning Star theme is an interpolation by the outside Orator to stabilize
the drama which without some such solution comes dangerously near a
manifesto of atheism.

When you visit us in England I want to talk to you about Lucifer
and explain how I had been reading the Old and New Testaments while
writing this poem. Briefly in this way, as a record of the progressive
understanding of God throughout the ages by a single representative race,
the Jews. God is presented in three degrees at least. There is God the
creator of the race of man, but of man still animal of the animals, whose
daughters the sons of Adam found fair; let us call that God, Saturn. Then
there is Jehovah or Jove, Saturn’s successor: the Garden of Eden is the
perfect symbolic expression of the birth of Jehovah. It is more than a
fable of the dawn of sex consciousness, it dramatizes man’s recognition
of the end of a long biological phase, and the birth pangs of the new
experimental period called civilization. The old heritage of self-seeking
instinct, in conflict with a new principle of social order found
necessary for the further survival of the race, split the primitive idea
of God into two, the ideas of Good and Evil, Good being the approval by
the social mind of those non-conscious workings of the body which further
its aims, Evil being the condemnation of the old Adam inclinations which
run counter to it. This idea of Good then is Jehovah, the God of the
present, predominantly male, violent, blundering, deceitful, with great
insistence on uniformity of rites duties and taboos, at whatever cost to
the individual; Jehovah’s greatest champion I found in Moses.

Finally there is Lucifer, the God of the future, only a weakling as yet,
the hope of eventual adjustment between ancient habits and present needs.
As the spirit of reconciliation, Lucifer puts out of date the negative
virtue of Good fighting with Evil, and proposes an Absolute Good which we
can now conceive of as Peace.

The doctrine of mutual responsibility for error, and of mutual respect
between individuals, sexes, classes, groups, and nations, a higher
conception than the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth doctrine
of Jehovah, is Lucifer’s. This ideal anarchy is the aspect of God
momentarily seen, I thought, by Jesus Christ, before him prophesied
by Isaiah and before him by Melchizedek; but since fallen even among
Christians under the renewed tyranny of Jehovah. The story of Lucifer’s
fall is clearly written in the Acts of the Apostles; where the violence
of Moses towards the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath Day is
worthily imitated by Peter when he strikes dead Ananias and Sapphira for
a partial witholding of a voluntary gift; where the low cunning of Jacob
with Esau is matched by Paul’s stirring up the partizanship of Saducee
against Pharisee while preaching the doctrine of tolerance.

This Light-Bringer Lucifer has been persistently misidentified by the
priests of Jehovah with the spirit of Evil, their God’s arch-enemy. But
I would have it put like this: if John Milton had paused to enquire why
Jesus Christ promised his followers the Morning Star as a reward for
virtue, Milton would have been spared the compunction which certainly
was besetting him in Paradise Lost for having conceived of his Prince of
Darkness as so much of a gentleman.

One day I must give you the full history of the famous encounter between
the archangel Michael and Lucifer (outlined in the Epistle of Jude) when
Lucifer asked the riddle still current in English speaking nurseries and
Michael dared not answer or even curse him, because an open discussion of
this particular point might prove dangerous to the fortunes of Jehovah.
In the _Revelations_ chapter which provides the familiar lesson for All
Saints’ Day we hear that Michael had to admit the implied charge by
resorting to violence. But guess the riddle and you shall have the answer
given you; this is the proper course communication should take between
poets.

                     And so yours in all good will,

                                                           ROBERT GRAVES.

_Islip, Oxon. August, 1922._



_THE FEATHER BED_



THE FEATHER BED

PROLOGUE


    In sudden cloud that blotting distance out
    Confused the compass of the traveller’s mind,
    Biassed his course, three times from the hill’s crest
    Trying to descend but with no track to follow,
    Nor visible landmark—three times he had struck
    The same sedged pool of steaming desolation,
    The same black monolith rearing up before it.
    This third time then he paused to recognize
    The _Witches’ Cauldron_ only known before
    By hearsay, fly-like on whose rim he had crawled
    Three times and three times dipped to climb again
    Its uncouth sides, so to go crawling on.

    By falls of scree, moss-mantled slippery rock,
    Wet bracken, drunken gurgling watercourses,
    He escaped limping at last, and broke the circuit
    Travelling down and down; but smooth descent
    Interrupted by new lakes and ridges,
    Sprawling unmortared walls of boulder granite,
    Marshes; one arm hung bruised where he had fallen,
    Blood welled a sticky trickle from his cheek,
    Mist gathering in his eye-brows ran full beads
    Down to his eyes, making them smart and blur.

    At last he blundered on some shepherd’s hut—
    He thought, the hut took pity and appeared—
    With mounds of peat and welcome track of wheels
    Which he now followed to a broad green road
    Running from right to left; but still at fault
    Whether he stood this side or that of the hill,
    The mist being still on all, with little pause
    He chose the easier way, the downward way.
    Legs were dog-tired already, only the road,
    The slow descent with some relief of guidance
    Maintained his shambling five miles to the hour
    Coloured with day dreams. Then a finger post
    Broke through the mist, pointing into his face,
    But when he stopped to read gave him no comfort.
    SEVENTEEN MILES TO—somewhere, God knows what!
    The paint was weathered to a mere acrostic
    Which cold unfocussed eyes could never read—
    But jerking a derisive thumb behind it
    Up a rough stream-wet path “THE WITCHES’ CAULDRON
    ONE MILE.” Only a mile
    For two good hours of stumbling steeplechase!
    There was a dead snake by some humorous hand
    Twined on the pointing finger; far away
    A bull roared hoarsely, but all else was mist.

    Then anger came upon him, in which heat
    He fell into deep thought and rhymes came strung
    Faster than speech might have kept pace with them.
    The Snake, the Bull!
                        What laughter was it, ended
    His allegory and startled the graceful hare
    That secure in the mist came leaping down towards him?
    Witch in disguise, emissary of witches?
    Swiftly he takes a stone up, hurls it at her,
    Chases her, bawling childish angry threats;
    She screams. Now with red shame sorrow floods back
    Making his journey by twice three miles longer
    As though once revisiting the witches,
    Those unclean—it stood symbol in his mind
    For what, but what? He never wished her harm—
    She being a hare and having innocent eyes—
    It was her fault for blundering on him there.
    He never wished her harm, she should have known
    His angry fit, frustration, weariness
    Breaking a gentler mood. With slackening steps
    He once more takes the homeward road, that is,
    If it does lead home; it’s making uphill now
    And narrowing sadly. That fool finger-post
    Had only snakes to brag about and witches,
    And the bull roared no very helpful threat.



THE FEATHER BED


    “Goodbye, but now forget all that we were
    Or said, or did to each other, here’s goodbye.
    Send no more letters now, only forget
    We ever met....” and the letter maunders on
    In the unformed uncompromising hand
    That witnesses against her, yet provides
    Extenuation and a grudging praise.
    Rachel to be a nun! Postulate now
    For her noviciate in a red brick convent:
    Praying, studying, wearing uniform,
    She serves the times of a tyrannic bell,
    Rising to praise God in the early hours
    With atmosphere of filters and stone stairs,
    Distemper, crucifixes and red drugget,
    Dusty hot-water pipes, a legacy-library....

    Sleep never comes to me so tired as now
    Leg-chafed and footsore with my mind in a blaze
    Troubling this problem over, vexing whether
    To beat Love down with ridicule or instead
    To disregard new soundings and still keep
    The old course by the uncorrected chart,
    (The faithful lover, his unchanging heart)
    Rachel, before goodbye
    Obscures you in your sulky resignation
    Come now and stand out clear in mind’s eye
    Giving account of what you were to me
    And what I was to you and how and why,
    Saying after me, if you can say it, “I loved.”

    Rachel so summoned answers thoughtfully
    But painfully, turning away her head,
    “I lived and thought I loved, for I had gifts
    Of most misleading, more than usual beauty,
    Dark hair, grey eyes, capable fingers, movement
    Graceful and certain; my slow puzzled smile
    Accusing of too much ingenuousness
    Yet offered more than I could hope to achieve,
    And if I thought I loved, no man would doubt it.”
    So speaks the image as I read her mind,
    Or is it my pride speaks on her behalf,
    Ventriloquizing to deceive myself?
    Anger, grief, jealousy, shame confuse the issue,
    Her beauty is a truth I can not blink
    However angry, jealous, sad, ashamed.

    Dissolve, image, dissolve!
    Make no appeal to the hunter in my nature,
    Leave me to self-reproach in my own time;
    If I too promised more than you could meet,
    Your beauty overrode my sense of fate
    And fitness, with extravagant pretence.
    Is it true that we were lovers once, or nearly?
    Lovers should sleep together on one pillow
    Clasped in each others arms with lip to lip,
    Their bed should be a masterpiece of ease,
    A mother-of-pearl embrace for its twin pearls.
    But where do you sleep now, and where am I?
    Disdaining all the comforts of old use
    We fall apart, are made ridiculous.
    You in your cell toss miserably enough
    Under thin blankets on a springless couch,
    And I two hundred miles away or further
    Wallow in this feather bed,
    With nothing else to rest my gaze upon
    Than flowery wall-paper, bulging and stained,
    And two stern cardboard signals “_God is love_,” and
    “_I was a stranger and ye took Me in_,”
    Ye took me in, took me in, took me in, ...
    The train of my thought straggles, loses touch,
    Piles in confusion, takes the longer road,
    Runs anyhow, heads true only by chance.
    Sacred Carnivals trundle through my mind,
    With Rhyme-compulsion mottoing each waggon.
    _God’s Love_, _the Holy Dove_, and _Heaven above_
    _Sin_, _deadly Sin_, _Begin_, _the Fight to Win_
    _Ye took me in_; _inn_; _inn_;—and now a jolt
    Returns me consciousness, and weary Logic
    Gathers her snapped threads up. A mouldy inn
    Offensive with cockchafers, sour and musty,
    All night the signboard creaks and the blinds bang,
    The cupboards groan, the draught under the door
    Flurries the carpets of this inn, this inn.
    How I came here? Where else could I be bettered?
    Loneliness drew me here and cloudy weather
    With cold Spring rains to chill me through and through
    Pelting across the mountains, purging away
    Affection for a fault, restoring faith....
    So God is Love? Admitted; still the thought
    Is Dead Sea fruit to angry baffled lovers
    Lying sleepless and alone in double beds,
    Shaken in mind, harassed with hot blood fancies.
    Break the ideal, and the animal’s left
    Which this ideal stood as mask to hide.
    Then the hot blood with no law hindering it
    Drums and buffets suddenly at the heart
    And seeks a vent with what lies first to hand.

    But yet no earthbound evil spirit comes
    Taking advantage of my unwrought mind,
    Tempting me to a gay concubinage,
    In likeness of some ancient queen of heaven
    Ardent and ever young. The legends say
    They come to hermits so, and holy saints,
    Disguised in a most blinding loveliness;
    Disrobe about the good man’s bed and twitch
    His blankets off and make as if to kiss him
    With sighs of passion irresistibly sweet.
    Yet he has power to turn on them, to cry
    “In the name of Christ begone!” and go they must.
    If I were a hermit now—but being myself
    I never give them challenge, never bend
    Kneeling at my bedside for hours together
    Praying aloud for chastity—that’s the bait
    Certain to draw them from their shadowy caves,
    Their broken shrines and rockbound fastnesses—
    Praying against the World, the Flesh, the Devil,
    But pausing most on Flesh—that praying against,
    Proposing yet denying the fixed wish!
    Closest expressed it’s the most dangerous....

    How would I _say my prayers_ now, if I tried,
    Using what formula? Would instinct turn
    To
            Gentle Jesus meek and mild
            Look upon thy little child
    To Gentle Jesus and the entrancing picture
    Of _Pretty mice in Plicity_ (where alas,
    Is County Plicity now? Beyond what skyline?
    I climbed in vain to-day).... When Rachel prays,
    Does she still dreamily speak to Gentle Jesus,
    The shepherd in that Nurnberg oleograph
    Hanging above the nursery mantlepiece?
    Her God? Anthropomorphic surely. One
    Bearded like Moses, straddled on the clouds,
    Armed with thunderbolts and shaggy eyebrows.
    “Bless me, dear God, and make me a good child.”
    Her childishness obscures her womanhood.
    When was I ever conscious in her presence
    That she was bodily formed like other women
    With womb for bearing and with breasts for suckling,
    With power, when she desired, to rouse in me
    By but the slightest art in diminution
    Of her accustomed childish truthfulness,
    A word or gesture hinting doubtfulness,
    The angry stream flooding beyond restraint?
    And yet no frisky wraith has come to-night
    Assuming Rachel’s body, goading me
    With false presentment of her honest person
    To mutiny and to utter overthrow;
    No wanton Venus, no bold Helen of Troy.

    For look, a different play performs to-night!
    See how come crowding in, with a bold air
    Of pertinence I do not dare to question
    This odd rag-tag-and-bobtail of lost souls,
    Ecclesiastical, furtive, dim, far gone
    In their _dementia praecox_! Doctor Hornblow
    On the Pentateuch, Dean Dogma upon Ruth
    (Ay, Ruth; the alien corn was not the worst)
    Keble and Pusey, Moody and Sankey griddling,
    And one most strange Victorian apparition,
    The ghost of Gladstone, with his stickout collars,
    Goes hand in hand with Senor Monkey-brand,
    Comrades who, printed on a paper cover,
    Gladstone in front and Monkey on the back,
    Made the _Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_
    Tacit defence of Darwin’s blasphemies.
    There go the ghosts of Mason, Martin Tupper,
    Dean Farrar, South, Cautionary Mrs. Turner,
    Butterfield with a spotted senior clerk,
    And a long rabble of confusing figures,
    Nuns, deacons, theologians, commentators,
    Spikes in birettas, missionaries like apes
    Hairy and chattering, bald; with, everyone,
    A book in the left hand tight clasped, the right
    Free to point scorn.
                        My cauliflower-wicked candle
    Gutters and splutters on the chair beside me,
    Over two books and a letter; the crowd passing
    Groans for reproach, confident in their numbers.
    But I, long used to crowds and their cowardly ways,
    Return these insults with the cold set eye
    That break their corporate pride—
                        What? those are plays.
    Yes, dramas by John Ford—_Love’s Sacrifice_,
    _The Broken Heart_, _’Tis Pity she’s a Whore_.
    The titles shock? These things are “not convenient?”
    Well, try this other by (ah) Canon Trout,
    _The Wisest Course of Love_—why do you smile?
    The book of plays I bought, this was a present,
    Sent me with Rachel’s letter—but you smile,
    You’re smiling still? Then I apologize,
    Ladies and Lords. Indeed I never guessed
    Humour was a luxury you admitted.
    “’Tis pity she’s a ... postulant.” Is it that?
    Malicious hearts! but you still nod, laugh, point,
    Pointing what joke? _The Wisest Course of Love?_
    Yes?
      I don’t see. I’ll buy it for a forfeit.
    Then a red-haired beaky-nosed burly nun
    Called Sister Agatha, so I tell myself,
    Comes nearer, throws her veil aside, takes up
    The envelope of the letter. Now she lays
    A manicured finger on the office post-mark,
    Leering down in my face.
                            I see it now,
    You ugly she-bear. Wisest Course of Love
    Is _Maidenhead_? Then you have read the letter?
    Dictated it quite likely? You, then, you!
    I know you, nun-official set to guide
    The postulants through their long penances
    And stern soul-searchings—with the twisted grin
    Of a bawd mistress, none too well concealed,
    You greeted Rachel in the Convent Hall,
    And peered and saw that she was beautiful,
    Giving her welcome with a sisterly kiss.

    Mother Superior was quite satisfied
    After inquiry in Burke’s _Landed Gentry_
    That the newcomer was a suitable
    Candidate for the Order of Seven Sorrows.
    It’s _so important_ to have _ladies only_!
    You twirl dear Mother round a little finger;
    You know her weaknesses, emotionalism,
    Snobbery, love of ritual; quite content
    To let her have her way in formal matters
    If you may mould the spirit of the place
    By due control of youthful aspirants,
    Postulants and novices—with the glow
    Of great devotion, honesty itself,
    You teach them hatred of their woman-flesh
    Eying their bodies with flagellant gaze
    Approving shame’s rebellion. _Maidenhead!_
    A well spiced joke! The carnal maidenhead
    Untaken, but the maidenhead of spirit
    Stolen away. Rachel in your good care!

    She says three years’ probation. For three years
    Humiliation, then she takes the veil
    And goes for ever.... “But of course, dear Friend,
    (Where did she learn “Dear Friend?”)
    Should I discover when I search my heart
    That God has sealed me for some other life,
    That my intended vow of resignation
    Is only pride, why then I’m free again.
    I pray for you,” etc., and etc.
    Dear Friend? lover or nothing it must be.
    I’m tired of friends, I’m past the need of friends.

    We never talked religion till that day.
    I took for granted Rachel used her sense,
    Thought for herself without the aid of priests
    On spiritual matters: I? I never trouble
    About such talk one year’s end to the next,
    But one day argument began; she started
    On Christian meekness, the low slavish virtue
    “Tapeinophrosune”, obsequiousness,
    Which I called nonsense. “Nonsense?” (with wide eyes)
    “Or call it poetry. Christ was never meek.
    Let meekness crawl below in catacombs,
    Pride drives the money-changers with a scourge,
    Keeps silence to accusers, chooses death
    When an escape is more acceptable
    To justice than embarrassment of killing.
    I’m talking paradox? I never meant it.”
    (Here I grew nettled at her wooden look)
    “And as for ‘feeling Jesus in my heart’
    What _does_ that mean? explain!
    I might acknowledge that historically
    All generous action flows from the prime source
    Of Jesus’ teaching (though give Plato credit
    And Aristotle). But Jesus as a power
    Alive, praying, pleading like a ouija spirit,
    Or _Laughing Eyes_ the séance influence,
    That’s stupid and unnecessary, in my mind.
    I am a man, I am proud, Jesus was man and proud;
    He died fulfilling, and his soul found peace.
    I greet him friendly down the gulf of years.”
    “But no!” she said “There _is_ a Spirit of Jesus
    Say what you like, there _is_ a Spirit of Jesus.”
    So I allowed her that, changing my front
    Saying, “If Jesus died on Cross, He’s dead,
    In so far as Mary’s son, the prophet died
    But hardly was He dead,
    Than up this elemental demon sprang
    Assuming mastership of Jesus’ school
    Using his body, even, so it’s told
    Calling himself by name of _Jesus Risen_.
    Who was he? Some poor godling, fallen through pride
    And greed of human flesh, on evil days.
    He changed his heart and once more stood for power,
    A roaring lion in the white lamb’s fleece,
    So by a long campaign of self-abasement
    And self-effacement grown mob-strong at length
    He overturned high Heaven, now rules the world.
    Yes, he’s a powerful devil; we are his sons
    Got on she-furies of our Northern gales.
    We hate the inheritance entailed on us
    And the outlandish family coat we blazon,
    The tell-tale features also; would deny
    His fatherhood, but for that eye, that nose,
    Betraying Galilee our Father’s land.
    There’s no escape from him. Midwife Tradition
    Has knotted Jesus in our navel strings
    Never to be undone this side the grave.”
    But that was one stage worse than blasphemy.
    And when we parted, she smiled grudgingly.
    I had said too much and cut her to the quick.
    She thought, poor child, she had her choice to make
    Between God’s way and my way. And so she chose ...
    This letter ... But she writes of Christian love.
    What _is_ that? It’s a most annoying habit,
    A warm blood-teasing smile, an open look,
    A recognition—thinks I to myself,
    Boy, this is fine! Love at first sight! True love!
    But then the disillusionment—by God
    She turns the same look of those clear kind eyes
    On a bootblack, on some fool behind a counter.
    She calls that, Love? But what _is_ Love to me?
    Love; it’s a two-part game, I’d say, not merely
    The searching radiations from one eye,
    That fly about with indiscriminate force—
    Sometimes unthinking in a public place
    I stare at girls sitting sideface to me
    And wonder at their beauty, summing it up,
    Then being innocent girls (I’d never look
    At others so) they grow aware of the heat
    That pours out from my eyes; but do not see me.
    (I may be fifty feet away or more)
    They fidget in their seats, uncross their knees,
    Pull down their skirts to hide even their ankles,
    Blush furiously and gaze about, in trouble;
    Then I start guiltily, rise and walk away;
    But that’s not Love, the searching and the heat;
    Love is an act of God, akin to Faith,
    Call it the union of two prayers by Faith
    (Here we come back to prayer by a long circuit
    And back to “God is Love”)
    But to explain again what’s Faith, what’s prayer,
    That’s the teaser! much too hard for me.

    Still, these are not Christian monopolies.
    What’s Faith but power stripped of its ornaments,
    Grants, title-deeds and such like accidentals;
    Force won by disentangling from the mind
    All hampering ties of luxury and tradition,
    Possessions, loyalties and hobby-horses?
    Cast all these overboard, and Faith is left,
    Faith potent through its prayer to miracles,
    Whether in name of Jesus or Jim Crow.
    Prayer: Rachel seems to think the collects prayer,
    And Mother Superior, I make no doubt,
    Will teach her scores of neatly turned devotions
    Couched in diminutives and pastoral terms,
    (Lord, how I hate the _literary_ prayer),
    Little white lambs indeed—O baa baa black sheep
    Have you any wool?—And Rachel in return
    Flushing with shame impetuously confesses,
    And holds half back, but crafty eyes are watching
    To drag all out, so Rachel has to tell
    How on the river bank one morning early
    The water was so clear, the sun so warm,
    She kissed me suddenly and was kissed by me—
    Lip kisses, that was all, and fingers clasped.
    Mother Superior then demanding further
    Will cross-examine her on how and why.
    “To tell it now will mortify the passion,
    Then when you make your general confession
    To Father James, your mind will have found peace.”
    (A good excuse) “What then were your sensations,
    The physical joy, tell me, my erring lamb!
    Tell me, I beg, but as the sin was pleasant
    So must confession of the sin be pain....”

    “Tis pity she’s a whore”. Rachel told all.
    _Whore_, traitress to the secret rites of love,
    Publisher of the not-communicable.
    If she refused the vows? If her heart changed?
    Rachel and I? This meek ex-novice rifled
    Of her love-secrets? medals and images
    Sewn in her skirts, Birmingham images
    From the totem-factory, niched in her heart?
    No, Love is fusion of Prayer, and prayer must be
    The flash of faith, unformulated words
    Demanding an accomplishment of Love
    With noise of thunder, against circumstance,
    And Rachel forfeits there all power to love.

    Who’s this? For now the rabble have passed through,
    Going unnoticed out; Mother Superior
    Secretly with one finger at her lips,
    Re-enters, carefully locks my bedroom door,
    Now she disrobes with fingers trembling so
    They tear the fastenings—naked she steps out
    To practise with her long-past-bearing body
    The wiles of the Earthbound (Ah, the fine young man,
    The hot young man whose kisses tasted sweet
    To our new postulant!) Madam, I beg you!
    You have mistaken the room; no, next door sleeps
    A lusty bagman, he’s the man to embrace you
    And welcome you with every brisk refinement
    Of passion. But while _you_ rumple his sheets,
    The innocent and unhappy eyes of Rachel
    Bewilder me—Oh then in spite of Faith
    I am cast down—You nuns, but if I needed,
    As I no longer need, I’d challenge you
    To contest of hard praying, one against all.
    I could wrest Rachel back even to this bed
    To-night. But Faith, and Prayer that’s born of Faith
    Find her slow mind impediment to their power,
    So I resign her—Agatha, do your worst.

    The wisest course of Love? Yes, maidenhead.
    For me? Love’s Sacrifice? It was not love.
    The Broken Heart? Not mine. I’ll say no more
    Than mere _goodbye_. Go, get you to your nunnery,
    And out the candle! Darkness absolute
    Surrounds me, sleepy mother of good children
    Who drowse and drowse and cry not for the sun,
    Content and wisest of their generation.



EPILOGUE.


    The morning star, over the mountains peering,
    Spoke to him not too distant for his hearing:—

    _I am the star of morning poised between_
    _The dead night and the coming of the sun,_
    _Yet neither relic of the dark nor pointing_
    _The angry day to come. My virtue is_
    _My own, a mild light, a relief a pity_
    _And the remembering ancient tribe of birds_
    _Sing blithest at my showing; only Man_
    _Sleeps on and stirs rebellious in his sleep._
    _Lucifer, Lucifer am I, millstone-crushed_
    _Between conflicting powers of doubleness,_
    _By envious Night lost in her myriad more_
    _Counterfeit glints, in day-time quite overwhelmed_
    _By tyrant blazing of the warrior sun._
    _Yet some, my prophets who at midnight held me_
    _Fixedly framed in their observant glass,_
    _By daylight also, sinking well shafts deep_
    _For water and for coolness of pure thought_
    _Gaze up and far above them see me shining_
    _Me, single natured, without gender, one_
    _The only spark of Godhead unresolved._

    But the lover gave no heed, so through his dreams
    Marched back the rabble rout, they glowered upon him
    But grown more awful and more reverend,
    Poor things before, now garbed in ancient dress,
    Bearded patriarchs and angry sybils
    Levites with censers, chariot riding kings,
    With comminations of hell fire and plague.
    Then even Nehushtan, the snake finger-post,
    Nehushtan which the credulous Hezekiah
    Spurned for superstitious, would have eased him,
    Or the bellowing voice of Aaron’s molten calf.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Feather Bed" ***

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