Chapter 61 - Sestina 4 (1/2)

There is no woman living that draws breath

So sad as I, though all things sadden her.

There is not one upon life's weariest way

Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.

Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower

All day with all his whole soul toward the sun;

While in the sun's sight I make m.o.a.n all day,

And all night on

My sleepless maiden bed

Weep and call out on death, O love, and thee,

That thou or he would take me to the dead,

And know not what thing evil I have done

That life should lay such heavy hand on me.

Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?

What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath,

Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,

That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?

My heart is harmless as my life's first day:

Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her

Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed:

I am the least flower in thy flowery way,

But till my time become that I be dead

Let me live out my flower-time in the sun

Though my leaves shut before the sunflower.

O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!

Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,

That live down here in shade, out of the sun,

Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death?

Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day

Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?

Because she loves him shall my lord love her

Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way?

I shall not see him or know him alive or dead;

But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee

That in brief while my brief life-days be done,

And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.

For underground there is no sleepless bed:

But here since I beheld my sunflower

These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day

His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.

Wherefore if anywhere be any death,

I would fain find and fold him fast to me,

That I may sleep with the world's oldest dead,

With her that died seven centuries since, and her

That went last night down the night-wandering way.

For this is sleep indeed, when labour is done,

Without love, without dreams, and without breath,

And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.

Ah, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?

Wilt thou not be as now about my bed

There underground as here before the sun?

Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,

Thy moving vision without form or breath?

I read long since the bitter tale of her

Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day,

And died, and had no quiet after death,

But was moved ever along a weary way,

Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,

O my king, O my lordly sunflower,

Would God to me too such a thing were done!

But if such sweet and bitter things be done,

Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.

For in that living world without a sun

Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead,

And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.

Yet if being wroth God had such pity on her,

Who was a sinner and foolish in her day,

That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,

Why should he not in some wise pity me?

So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed

I may look up and see my sunflower

As he the sun, in some divine strange way.

O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way

This sore sweet evil unto us was done.

For on a holy and a heavy day