Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/207

 Come down and redeem us from virtue, Our Lady of Pain.

All shrines that were Vestal are flameless, But the flame has not fallen from this; Though obscure be the god, and though nameless The eyes and the hair that we kiss; Low fires that love sits by and forges Fresh heads for his arrows and thine; Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies With kisses and wine.

Thy skin changes country and colour, And shrivels or swells to a snake's. Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller, We know it, the flames and the flakes, Red brands on it smitten and bitten, Round skies where a star is a stain, And the leaves with thy litanies written, Our Lady of Pain.

On thy bosom though many a kiss be, There are none such as knew it of old. Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe, Male ringlets or feminine gold, That thy lips met with under the statue, Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves From the eyes of the garden-god at you Across the fig-leaves?