IN THE CAGE
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he sounds of mid-night trickle into the roarOf morning over the water growing blue.At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pourA blinding flood on Michigan Avenue. But yet the half-drawn shades of bottle greenLeave the recesses of the roomWith misty auras drawn around their gloomWhere things lie undistinguished, scarcely seen. You, standing between the window and the bedAre edged with rainbow colors. And I lieDrowsy with quizzical half-open eyeMusing upon the contour of your head,Watching you comb your hair,Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk,Tied with white braid above your slender hipsWhich reaches to your knees and makes your bareAnd delicate legs by contrast white as milk.And as you toss your head to comb its tressesThey flash upon me like long strips of sandBetween a moonlit sea, pale as your hand,And a red sun that on a high dune stressesIts sanguine heat. And then at times your lips,Protruding half unconscious half in scornEngage my eyes while looking through the mornAt the clear oval of your brow brought fullOver the sovereign largeness of your eyes;Or at your breasts that shake not as you pullThe comb through stubborn tangles, only riseScarcely perceptible with breath or signs,Firm unmaternal like a young Bacchante's,Or at your nose profoundly dipped like Dante'sOver your chin that softly melts away. Now you seem fully under my heart's sway.I have slipped through the magic of your meshFreed once again and strengthened by your flesh,You seem a weak thing for a strong man's play.Yet I know now that we shall scarce have partedWhen I shall think of you half heavy hearted.I know our partings. You will faintly smileAnd look at me with eyes that have no guile,Or have too much, and pass into the sphereWhere you keep independent life meanwhile.How do you live without me, is the fear?You do not lean upon me, ask my love, or wonderOf other loves I may have hidden underThese casual renewals of our love.And if I loved you I should lie in flame,Ari, go about re-murmuring your name,And these are things a man should be above. And as I lie here on the imminent brinkOf soul's surrender into your soul's power,And in the white light of the morning hourI see what life would be if we should linkOur lives together in a marriage pact:For we would walk along a boundless tractOf perfect hell; but your disloyaltyWould be of spirit, for I have not wonMastered and bound your spirit unto me.And if you had a lover in the wayI have you it would not by half betrayMy love as does your vague and chainless thought,Which wanders, soars or vanishes, returns,Changes, astonishes, or chills or burns,Is unresisting, plastic, freely wroughtUnder my hands yet to no unisonOf my life and of yours. Upon this brinkI watch you now and thinkOf all that has been preached or sung or spokenOf woman's tragedy in woman's fall;And all the pictures of a woman brokenBy man's superior strength. And there you standYour heart and life as firmly in commandOf your resolve as mine is, knowing allOf man, the master, and his power to harm,His rulership of spheres material,Bread, customs, rules of fair repute--What are they all against your slender arm?Which long since plucked the fruitOf good and evil, and of life at lastAnd now of Life. For dancing you have castVeil after veil of ideals or pretenseWith which men clothe the being feminineTo satisfy their lordship or their senseOf ownership and hide the things of sin--You have thrown them aside veil after veil;And there you stand unarmored, weirdly frail,Yet strong as nature, making comicalThe poems and the tales of woman's fall....You nod your head, you smile, I feel the airMade by the closing door. I lie and stareAt the closed door. One, two, your tuftèd stepsDie on the velvet of the outer hall.You have escaped. And I would not pursue.Though we are but caged creatures, I and you--A male and female tiger in a zoo.For I shall wait you. Life himself will trackYour wanderings and bring you back,And shut you up again with me and cageOur love and hatred and our silent rage. SAVING A WOMAN: ONE PHASE To a lustful thirst she came at firstAnd gave him her maiden's pride;And the first man scattered the flower of her love,Then turned to his chosen bride. She waned with grief as a fading star,And waxed as a shining flame;And the second man had her woman's love,But the second was playing the game. With passion she stirred the man who was third;Woe's me! what delicate skillShe plied to the heart that knew her artAnd fled from her wanton will. Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure,Oh subtle, patient and wise,She trod the weary round of life,With a sorrow deep in her eyes. Now a hero who knew how false, how trueWas the speech that fell from her lips,With a Norseman's strength took sail with her,And landed and burnt his ships. He gave her pity, he gave her mirth,And the hurt in her heart he nursed;But under the silence of her browsWas a dream of the man who was first. And all the deceit and lust of menHad sharpened her own deceit;And down to the gates of hell she ledHer friend with her flying feet. For a bitten bud will never bloom,And a woman lost is lost!And the first and the third may go unscathed,But some man pays the cost. And the books of life are full of the rune,And this is the truth of the song:No man can save a woman's soul,Nor right a woman's wrong.
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