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Christopher Brennan - Interlude: The Window And The Hearth
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Twice now that lucid fiction of the pane 
 dissolves, the sphere that winter`s crystal bane 
 still-charm`d to glass the sad metempsychose 
 and futile ages of the suffering rose — 
 what, in its halt, the weary mood might show. 
 Earth stirs in me that stirs with roots below, 
 and distant nerves shrink with the lilac mist 
 of perfume blossom`d round the lure that, kist, 
 is known hard burn o`erflaked and cruel sting. 
 I would this old illusion of the spring 
 might perish once with all her airs that fawn 
 and traitor roses of the wooing dawn: 
 for none hath known the magic dream of gold 
 come sooth, since that first surge of light outroll`d 
 heroic, broke the august and mother sleep 
 and foam`d, and azure was the rearward deep; 
 and Eden afloat among the virgin boughs 
 fused, song-jewel sudden, and flesh was blithe with vows 
 to tread, divine, under the naked air; 
 nor knew, alas! self-doom`d thro` time to bear 
 lewd summer`s dusty mock and roses` fall, 
 and cynic spring, returning, virginal. 

 Chimaera writhes beside the tragic flame 
 of the old hearth: her starting jaws proclaim, 
 a silent cry, the craven world`s attaint. 
 Her vans that beat against a hard constraint 
 leaps, as the coals jet in a moment-spasm: 
 yet their taut ribs hurt not the serpent chasm 
 of shade, that slips swift to its absent den, 
 to settle, grimlier, at her throat again. 
 And, starward were their prison-roof increas`d, 
 no sun that bathes him for a dewy east 
 would light her mail, above the tainted air 
 a meteor-dazzling gem, but the red flare 
 kindle disastrous on our burning eyes 
 from where the sullen embers agonize, 
 once the heart`s rose-flusht dream of living gold. 
 Therefore her croup, thro` many a lapsing fold, 
 is bound into the iron`s night, to check 
 the frenzy that contorts her charging neck: 
 her life is flitting with the fitful red 
 splashing her flank as `twere her courage bled 
 to curdle with the void, whose metal-cold 
 shall seal her gone, a block no art shall mould. 
 And now the shining tongues that sprang to lick 
 the obscene blackness in are tarnisht thick: 
 insidiously thro` each blank pane the dark 
 invades from space, vast cemetery: one spark 
 flies up, the lessen`d ghost of flame: her flight 
 stiffens, and is a settled piece of night.
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