[Bleak&Icy]

From "Six Songs for Chloë" by A. D. Hope

II. The Perfume

... marked males of the silkworm moth have been known to fly upwind seven
miles to a fragrant female of their kind ... the chemical compound with
which a female silkworm moth attracts mates is highly specific; no other
species seem aware of it. In 1959, the Nobel Laureate Adolph Butenandt of
the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich succeeded in analysing
it. He found it to be an alcohol with sixteen carbon atoms per molecule ....
-- L. and M. Milne, The Senses of Animals and Men.

O Chloë, have you heard it,
This news I sing to you?
It's true, my lovely bird, it
Is absolutely true!
A biochemist probing
Has caught without a doubt
The Queen of Love disrobing
And found her secret out.

What drives the Bombyx mori
To fly, intrepid male,
Lured by the old, old story
Six miles against the gale?
The formula, my Honey,
Is now in print to prove
What is, and no baloney,
The very stuff of love.

At Munich on the Isar
Those molecules were found
Which everyone agrees are
What makes the world go round;
What draws the male creation
To love, my darling doll,
Turns out, on trituration,
To be an alcohol.

A Nobel Laureatus
Called Adolph Butenandt
Contrived to isolate us
This strong intoxicant.
The boys are celebrating
And singing at the club:
Here's Bottoms up! to mating,
Since Venus keeps a pub!

My angel, 0, my angel,
What is it you suffuse,
What redolent evangel,
What nosegay of good news?
What draws me like a dragnet
And holds and keeps me tight?
What odds! my fragrant magnet,
I shall be drunk tonight!

III. Going to Bed

Chloë, let down that chestnut hair;
Let it flow full; let it fall free;
Loosen that zone, those clasps that bare
Your breasts: then leave the rest to me.

First like a cloud your dress shall float
Over your shoulders and away;
And next the faithless petticoat
Those exquisite, breathing flanks display;

Stockings and drawers I shall peel off
From your lithe legs and lovely thighs,
And think the rustling silks you slough
The foam from which, new-born, you rise.

Thus Love in mime despoils this world:
Fashions, beliefs and customs fall;
In brutal, naked grace unfurled
He shows the root and ground of all.

But when his power has stripped us stark,
These purged and primal selves shall find
A better and a brighter mark
Than those poor ventures of mankind;

For we whose fate is to retrace
The labyrinth and re-wind the clew,
All patterns of the past erase
And find our world begins anew.

Our nature then puts off, my dear,
What parts it from the true divine:
Bare as the gods we must appear
And as those blessed beings shine.

A single, soaring flame shall bound,
Frame and enfold our nakedness;
And with that glory clothed and crowned
Our souls shall want no other dress.

No roof can shelter us, no house
That falls to ruin as fabrics must;
No crumbling temple hear our vows
Or sanction that immortal lust.

Our bed must be the bracken brown
Or the waste dunes beside the sea,
And the wide heaven arching down
Our portion of eternity.

IV. The Quarrel

Chloë, be still!
Not one word more;
The gale is not so shrill
Under my door.

Shriek, then, fury, shriek:
Call me brute and worse!
Where was I this week?
I was writing verse.

Do you doubt me then?
Have you sworn to prove
That I spent it in
Bed making love?

Who then, who, hell-cat?
Only tell me her name.
What, do you dare say that:
Chloë, hush, for shame!

Never think a few
Tears will soften me.
I've a mind to lay you
Across my knee.

What was that, you vixen,
Words I hear you spit?
'You and who else then?"
Let me show you, pet.

See, I've got you, precious,
Skirt folded back
To give that delicious
Bottom one smack.

One more, permit me!--
Then another one
--Hell, girl you bit me
Almost to the bone!

Girls should be made of
Sugar and spice;
Girls should be afraid of
Brutal men and mice.

But not my Chloë; she's
A brimstone wench;
Dragon, cockatrice
Would not make her blench.

Chloë, what is this?
After lightning, rain?
Do you sob and kiss,
Are you mild again?

Do you hate me less?
Do you nod your head?
Yes, Yes, Yes!
Chloë, come to bed!

V. The Lamp

Night and the sea; the firelight glowing;
We sit in silence by the hearth;
I musing, you beside me sewing,
We glean the long day's aftermath.

After the romping surf, the laughter,
The salt and sun, the roaring beach,
These flames glancing on wall and rafter
Are tongues of pentecostal speech.

And while their whispers come and go, I
Turn to watch you in your grace,
My gallant, radiant, reckless Chloë,
Who love and lead me such a chase,

To find it vanished, that incessant
Fulfilment of the urgent Now:
For here, absolved from past and present,
There broods a girl I do not know.

The clear, the gay, the brilliant nature
Matching your body's pride, gives place
To a soft, wavering change of feature:
This grave, remote and troubled face;

A face all women have in common
When, lost within themselves, alone,
They hear the demiourgos summon
And draw their ocean like the moon.

The moon is up; the beaches glisten,
The land grows faceless as the sea;
And you withdraw and, while you listen,
Put on your anonymity.

I hear my pulses, as they travel,
Drop one by one to the abyss;
I feel the skein of life unravel
And ask in dread: who then is this ?

Who is this shade that sits beside me
And on what errand has she come:
To drive me on the dark, or guide me,
To tempt, or bring my spirit home ?

Or is she lost herself, uncertain
And helpless on that timeless track ?
Whichever way, I draw the curtain
And light the lamp that brings us back.