Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge

Contents

The Great Adventure

I. Life . 3

II. Love . . . 31

II Primavera

Spirit immortal of mortality,

Imperishable faith, calm miracle

Of resurrection, truth no tongue can tell.

No brain conceive, — now witnessed utterly In this new testament of earth and sea, —

To us thy gospel ! Where the acorn fell

The oak-tree springs : no seed is infidel !

Once more, O Wonder, flower and field and tree Reveal thy secret and significance!

And we, who share unutterable things

And feel the foretaste of eternity. Haply shall learn thy meaning and perchance

Set free the soul to lift immortal wings

And cross the frontiers of infinity.

Ill

Life gives the pass-key of his treasure-house Into our hand, saying, "What diadem, What gold of glory, what illustrious gem Man shall desire of me, shall crown his brows!"

And nothing of all man's choice Life disallows. Whether of prized or priced or priceless things: By the feast-tables heaped with offerings, "Enter!" he cries to all men, "and carouse!"

And thus after our will, in greed and haste, For certain years we choose and use and waste. Suffer and strive : — save some few restless men

Who seek, uncrowned, unfriended, alien And careless of the flushed festivity, The path thro' life and death to liberty!

IV Unspeakable are the felicities

Of labour and long endurance for the Truth : Love's sea at flood in the rash heart of Youth, Freedom and spiritual ecstasies!

Incredible are the discoveries

Of Life's adventure : on the high, outcast, Star-severed pathways Life may stand at last Thrilled witness of the soul's divinities !

And always Night beyond ! — infinite, strange. Teeming, inviolate, where the peaks of thought. Flushed by an unseen Dawn, superbly range

Down the long frontiers whence the restless soul. Forward, beyond the last and best it sought. Still finds a path, a prospect and a goal !

We trod into the starlight, into the night; The ways of our deliverance were not mild: Long had we been contented and beguiled. And long importunate lovers of the light.

Long had we sought and scorned the false delight Of perishable things and things defiled, — Reckless at last we passed unreconciled Out thro' the darkness in all men's despite.

And much we suffered, and spent our strength and youth On the steep paths, and lived in loneliness. Till, as our life-blood fed the lamp of Truth,

Ruin rent down the fortress-walls of Fear, And light was kindled in the blind, austere Ways of the soul's eternal restlessness.

VI

Twilight of Truth's unfettered wanderings! Skies of supreme adventure, lightning-crossed! Tho', as we soar alone, perchance, and lost, Strange ethers yield beneath our desperate wings.

The diapason of Life's singing strings. Large as the pensive murmur of still seas. May reach us, and of all Truth's galaxies Haply one star console our sufferings.

We stand, at least, too far beyond to heed The protest vacant and grandiloquent Of timid, rich and pious men: the event

Is ours to win or lose, and ours the faith

That he who sows the Truth's immortal seed Shall harvest in the fields of life and death!

VII TUCKANUCK

Take me away to the sea, O carry me

Down to the sea where there is space and light, Where stars abound in the gigantic night, Where soul and flesh are unconstrained and free!

Carry me back! for I once more would see The midnight sky's moon-silvered azurite. The calm lagoon at noonday wide and white, — Carry me down! O take me to the sea!

O take me hence to the innumerable Deep-rumouring waters ! Let me feel the core Of life reecho like a chambered shell

The voice and motion of the immensity !

Carry me back! — O Soul, from Life's dark shore Take me away forever to the Sea!

VIII Powerful, patient, vast serenity

Of Nature's fathomless tranquillities: Inviolate silence of the starlit skies. Deep respiration of the windless sea:

There may we rear the towers of thought in thee. Pluck forth the secret from the Sphinx's eyes. Ransom from countless chance captivities Man's inarticulate divinity!

There may we jfind the faith which dares disown Nothing that is, the faith by which alone We, peradventure, shall be justified;

There may the Soul go forth and there return Or here no more, but pass from bourne to bourne. Ever from life to life unsatisfied !

IX

Shall we return, return once more and stand There where at sunset we may thrill to see The skies flash kindling like the noontide sea. The birds pass seaward from the darkling land?

Shall we return and on the stainless sand Hear, as of old, the waves' wild minstrelsy. And feel once more the heart within us free. The soul within us strong to understand? —

We shall return ! and in the silence find Ever the nameless peace, the calm delight. The spacious meditations of the mind.

Wherein, dilate with Truth's unfailing breath. Our souls ^lay witness Life's immortal light Fill the dark chambers of the House of Death.

There may we learn at daybreak and nightfall. As day and dusk and darkness cover us. With earth and sky and the omniverous Infinite sea of ceaseless flood and fall, —

There may we learn how love is spiritual And death divine and life illustrious, There may we find at last the fabulous Truth and compose the soul's high ritual.

There may we haply find ourselves, the goal. Ourselves, the source of all enlightenment. And thus discern how earth and sky and sea

And love and life and death and destiny Are wrought of one eternal element Quarried in dim deep strata of the Soul.

XI

We loved too perfectly for praise The spread of noon's sun-startled sea. We loved the large tranquillity Of flowing distances and days.

In calm, dark sunsets or the blaze Of moonlit waves, the ecstasy And spacious thought of liberty Thrilled us in deep and silent ways.

We loved too much for song or speech The stars' exalted loneliness. And in the tacit tenderness

Of hearts thrown open each to each We found the perfect peace that brings A foretaste of eternal things.

XII

We loved the illimitable night. We loved the interminable sea, We loved, on flower and vine and tree. The candid foliage wet with light.

We loved the thunder and the might Of mountains and ineffably We loved the power that made us be Lovers of life and life's delight.

We loved the innocent joys of earth. The poise and peace of natural things. We loved the miracle of birth;

We loved, beyond life's last release. The shadow as of stirless wings. The silence and majestic peace.

XIII We found a symbol and significance

In day by day the changed and changeless sea, In night by night each glittering galaxy. The cosmic pageant and extravagance.

Lost in the devious labyrinth of chance We sought the endless thread of liberty. And in the shadow of the Mystery We watched for light with sleepless vigilance.

Yet still how far soever we climbed above The nether levels, always, like a knife. We felt the chill of fear's blind bitter breath:

For still a secret crazed the heart of Love, An endless question blurred the eyes of Life, A baffling silence sealed the lips of Death.

XIV How often in the tranquil evenings

There by the kindled sea's immense unrest. Has love, like music in the human breast. Thrilled us with incommunicable things !

How often, as we watched the sea-birds* wings Flash in the sunset on their homeward quest. Have life's large secrets, by the soul confessed. Taught us the pride and peace that freedom brings!

How often have we felt the calm of thought Quell the storm-shaken waters of the soul. Till, land-locked by the cUffs of Time, they caught

The silent gleam of Truth's unchanging stars. And felt the universal ocean roll. Muffled and vast, on Life's dissolving bars!

XV

O South-wind, silvered by the crescent moon. Breathe on my shadowed sail and carry me Homeward across the sunset-coloured sea. The rose and violet of the calm lagoon.

There where the high and homeless stars shall soon Thrill the vast darkness singly, silently. Carry me back, O South-wind, tenderly Thro* the gold dusk of closing afternoon.

And as thou bear'st me on my homeward way. With what few leaves of Truth's immortal wreath. What spiritual, secret victories.

Are mine; so, homeward from life's little day. The golden-winged, star-silvered wind of death Shall take the soul with all its argosies.

XVI

In some clear, crystalline, calm-murmuring Midnight, or when the cloud-sierras rise Massive and flame-swept in the sunset skies. Or in the noonday broad and glittering,

We shall return ! The endless wind shall bring Sea-perfumes and sea-rumours and the cries Of scattered sea-birds, while our shrunken eyes Grow spacious in the vast horizon's ring.

There day by day in high intelligence Of Nature, we shall learn her parable; We shall explore thought's wide circumference;

We shall return at last! and find the soul. By indications untransmissible. Always the steadfast centre and the goal!

XVII ODYSSEUS

He strove with Gods and men in equal mood Of great endurance : not alone his hands Wrought in wild seas and laboured in strange lands. And not alone his patient strength withstood

The clashing cliffs and Circe's perilous sands: Eager of some imperishable good He drave new pathways thro' the trackless flood Foreguarded, fearless, free from Fate's commands.

How shall our faith discern the truth he sought? We too must watch and wander till our eyes. Turned sky-ward from the topmost tower of thought.

Haply shall find the star that marked his goal. The watch-fire of transcendent liberties Lighting the endless spaces of the soul.

XVIII KALYPSO

Sorceress of his charmed captivity, Of all love's gifts she was munificent; Yet was he unpersuaded to content Incurious of love's warm felicity.

Fain of departure on the treacherous sea: Heedless he was whether his life were spent In shipwreck on the cruel element. So he were homeward bound, so he were free!

And even as he adventured life and cast

Pleasure and passion from his home-sick heart. Still, tho' in exile, mindful of his goal;

So, after long enslavements, we, at last Reckless and undissuaded, shall depart. Free and bound outward, homeward to the soul!

XIX

EGYPT

Reliquary of Time's vicissitude.

Proof of persistent change, and prophecy, — Rapt in thy myths and monuments I see Visions that throng thy soundless solitude:

The pageant of a rumouring multitude, The celebration and the mystery Of occult and august Divinity Sculptured in hieratic attitude; —

Till I discern across the shadow of years The self -same tragic life and death of men. The passion and the pathos and the tears.

The love and labour of humanity:

And know at last, tho' Time's abysmal sea Divide us, yet we are not alien !

XX

In Time's cathedral Memory, like a ghost Crouched in the narrow twilight of the nave, Fumbles with thin pathetic hands to save Relics of all things lived and loved and lost.

Life fares and feasts and Memory counts the cost With unrelenting lips that dare confess Life's secret failures, sins and loneliness And life's exalted hopes, defiled and crossed.

Shalt thou endure, O Memory, and thy breath Quicken the dead in thy dominion And fire the peaks of thought we dared to climb.

When, in the swift relentless chill of death. The crawling ice-floes of oblivion Strangle thy passage thro' the seas of Time?

XXI

O Memory, Mistress of the heart's despair, Spirit of solitude and silent tears. Pilgrim thro' twilights of departed years Peopled with ghosts of all that once we were -

Pale vampire of the graves of Time, forbear! Suffer the dead to rest ! each ghost appears Desolate in thy darkened atmospheres. And joy is bitter and pain is perfect there.

Thine are the days gone irretrievably: —

Forbear, O Memory, for the heart will break! Unless the Soul shall, peradventure, wake

Wonderfully, and, elate with mystic powers, Rend as with lightnings of eternity The graves of the interminable hours !

XXII

Days that have been and nevermore shall be. Children of Time the sword of Time has slain. Great hours of life when heart and soul were fain Of Love's pure fire and Truth's eternity, —

Now, on the marches of that dim domain And desolate sunset-land of Memory, Ye rise Uke tortured ghosts and silently Walk in the sombre twilights of the brain.

And we, like pilgrims on the path of Time Who find no rest nor any dwelling-place. We follow blindly in Life's retinue.

While, like the furies of Orestes' crime. The spectral hosts of Memory on our trace Innumerably assemble and pursue.

XXIII QUESTIONS

Curious of life and love and death they stand Outward along the shadowy verge of thought; Rebels and deicides, they rise unsought And spare no creed and yield to no command.

Even tho' at last we seem to understand.

Yet, when our eyes grow sphered to the new light. We find them, outposts in the forward night. Their eyes still restless with the same demand.

On all the heights and at the farthest goal Set by the seers and christs of yesterday They watch and wait and ask the onward way;

They storm the citadels of faith and youth. And, gazing always for the stars of Truth, Crowd in the glimmering windows of the Soul.

XXIV TO NIGHT

Thou canst console our sad humanity With dreams of imimagined loveliness. Or cast the shadow of forgetf ulness Over the haggard eyes of memory.

The deep unrest of man's infinity

Thou canst appease, for all thy stars confess The living soul's imprisoned loneliness. And heart finds liberty alone in thee.

Thou shalt complete us all who love and leam The secret of thy silences, till we Arise regenerate from the throes of strife.

And in thine all-receptive peace discern The ineffable presence of eternity Waiting forever at the gates of life.

XXV

Thus were our lives resolved! "The Dawn," we said, "Is somewhere since the light is everywhere; Pinnacled in the universal air The tower of thought, we must believe, shines red!"

By blind belief at all adventure led.

Thus were our lives resolved at last to dare. Also we knew that up the endless stair Socrates and some few were gone ahead.

But when at length we climbed into the light. In wild alarm we saw how far it springs Across death's void impassable atmosphere, —

Then, as our great resolve grew sick with fear. We felt the freedom and the infinite Ambition of the soul's expanded wings !

n

LOVE

TO HER

O SEA, nature's eternal palimpsest,

O stars that dawn, as memories one by one

Break on the dark void of oblivion,

O poem of love that fills the fragile nest, —

Whisper to me! Stir me to great unrest, O passionate chaunt ! Immortal antiphon, Proud psean of life that peals from sun to sun. From flower to flower, from human breast to breast,

Sound in my soul ! and thou, O heart, resound, O lips, proclaim ! for where her lips have clung There must the lyric pulse beat tense and strong;

And where she lives with love must life abound With music unimagined and unsung To mend Truth's ravelled tapestry of song!

II

She is the sea's star-smitten amethyst; She is the light of long, incredible Smisets; she is the myth and miracle Of love and Love is life's protagonist.

She is the soul and tragic heart of youth; She is the dreams and raptures that foretell. In legend, lyric, poem and parable. The spacious and supreme vision of Truth.

In life's last desolation and distress

She is the touch that sets the Door ajar; She is the peace, she is the passionless

Chill wonder of the Night's infinite breath; She is the nameless light, the mystic star In the illimitable skies of Death.

Ill

Thunder, like thunder of the wind-scourged sea. Of shouting multitudes and smitten lyres. The perfumed smoke of sacrificial fires. The palm, the paean, and the ecstasy

That once confessed thy deep divinity

Are gone : the music fails, the rapture tires, — But still heart burns, soul reaches, sense desires For thee, only for thee and all for thee !

For thou art She, indubitably She,

The dear dream-woman, fatal and unknown, Lilith and Helen and Eurydice;

And for thy sake man laughed at God's decree. And brought the haughty towers of Ilium down. And trod the pits of Hell because of thee.

IV

Her soul is free from Time's fantastic trance; No infidelity has vexed her eyes Where burns the light of spiritual skies Deep and unshaken by the winds of chance.

Her beauty gives a new significance To life, and new desires and dignities. And exaltation of new stars that rise Over the dark ways of deliverance.

Love is her captive and her minister; The golden shadow of the wings of love Lies warm and tranquil on her naked breast:

She is the World's Desire, the shrine whereof Life is the pilgrim, and in quest of her All men have striven and suffered without rest I

Her days are like the white processional Of sacred virgins who, transfused with bliss, Moved round the altars of Hermopolis With equal pace and measured interval.

For, like the God of Gods, possessed of all The mighty meaning of the Mysteries, She over-sees the endless theories Of Time from summits clear and spiritual.

And I, beside her shrine, with bated breath. Far in her eyes' profound horizons see Ever the pulse, the ebb, the upward roll

Of light, — the day of life, the night of death. Passing beneath the altars whence her soul Watches in undisturbed divinity.

VI

Her hair is hued like shadow where light is Tragic and tense and tranquil, and her eyes Burn in their depths the splendour of such skies As sunset kindled over Naukratis.

It may be, when the walls and towers of This Stood in magnificence and rang with cries Of myriads in their flashing panoplies. She shone with the Immortals! — God! we miss

The secret of life's lost divinity!

The days, like Sphinxes, one by one repeat Their silent question and devour us !

How shall we learn the answer? How shall we Scatheless endure the sacred flame that beat And brake the desperate wings of Icarus?

VII

I GIVE my whole life for her dwelling-place, And all my days are mansions made for her, And all my heart is like a harp-player Singing with eyes insatiate of her face.

And she, for the same love's sake, in the trace Of my dark journey follows everywhere. And from the labour of truth and the despair She can console me in her deep embrace.

For Love has made her body of his delight And of his sacred frenzy, and his light Is calm and ardent in her perfect eyes;

And Love has shared his faith and liberty Between us, who are blent inseparably In the communion of his mysteries.

VIII

She moulded life, with hands subtle and wise. Into the faultless fashion of a vase Carved as of emerald or chrysoprase. And bossed with mythic shapes of Paradise.

And brimmed it was with fire of sunset skies. And deep sea-amethyst, and crystalline. Calm starlight, all distilled into a wine Clear and perturbed with splendour like her eyes.

And, as we slaked the thirst that gave no rest By day or night, with solemn ecstasy We knew such vineyards of the soul were pressed

To yield this very heart's-blood of our love,

That from our hands the cup, once drained thereof. Must fall and shatter irretrievably.

IX

That day of the innumerable days Was like a gate set open secretly, Where the swift sense of immortality Drave us from Time's interminable ways.

Clear as a song's inviolable phrase. Tender as sunset on a windless sea. Our sudden hearts yielded ineffably. Our eyes drank deep of Truth's eternal rays.

We saw how blind and aimless on and on

Time journeys, while the ripened harvests stand Of Truth and Liberty on either hand;

And so we reaped and made the sacred bread And poured the wine of Love's communion: And there that day the starving soul was fed.

In the shadow and glamour of the ways. With a passion more mighty than we were. With the strength of desire, we followed where We found Love's light that leads and never stays.

And yet not thus, alone for what repays The passion that is life for best and worst. The desire that is hunger, that is thirst. We wrought Love's labour of all our nights and days.

Nay, not alone the great hilarity

Of Love's brimmed cup and Life's high festival Gave us good warrant of the quest: thereof

Were we resolved, because, for one and all Of Love's true partisans, we seemed to see The Truth alive in the deep heart of Love!

XI

My lips were bruised against her lips, my eyes Drowned in her eyes as in a star-lit sea; My life sang brokenly to her, and she Trembled with inarticulate replies.

I felt the rapture that in Paradise

Woke in their hearts, who, heedless of the cost. Yielded to love; like waters tempest-tossed, I felt her breast beneath me fall and rise.

And when at last our hands and eyes and lips Severed, still, deep in life's undying heart. We felt the birth of poems, the springs of song;

And saw, by winds of music borne along.

Our souls go forth on love's high seas, like ships Making Truth's voyage without helm or chart.

[ 43 1

XII

Her breast is perfumed and profound as sleep; Her fervent, mythic face is clear and fair And pale as light; thro' all her sombre hair The tragic splendours of the sunset creep.

And now for me her soul and senses keep Incessant vigil, and because we share The journey she will neither ask nor care Whether the ways of love be smooth or steep.

Her eyes that watch for mine are starred and strange As tho* there lightened on her inward sight New vistas of the soul's unfettered range;

As tho' she saw, across the passive night. On far horizons of the seas of change. By Love's decree made manifest, the Light !

XIII

We shared the silent faith and truth of things ! Her life seemed all in all to sing to me. And mine replied in clear antiphony. Wild as the music of wind-smitten strings.

Hers was the mood of one who subtly sings In low, long sunsets by a windless sea; Far in her languid eyes I seemed to see The flash of unimagined lightenings.

And when against her breast I felt the core Of life grow eager, while within her kiss Trembled the broken rhythm of her blood,

I cried, "O slay thy worshippers, O God Of Love ! for life must be f orevermore After this joy a lesser joy than this!"

XIV

My lips shut hard against her lyric throat; Her hands were tense, her pulses tremulous: Life burned and languished while I held her thus; The feet of Time grew soundless and remote.

Glitters of Truth's consummate splendour smote Our eyes with fire, and music, over us, Like spheres of crystal clear and marvellous. Fell thro' the faultless silence note by note.

When life and time drave us once more apart. Life seemed a hollow shell of irised peari Filled with the song-pulse of her gorgeous heart;

And Time an eyeless ghost who, thro' the night Where stars burn and dawn lifts and lightnings

whirl, Strove to constrain me from the paths of light.

XV

She stood in the weird moonlight of a dream. And in the light there was incredible Silence, and on her lips no syllable Of any speech, and in her eyes no gleam.

And by her still white feet the narrow stream Paused in its flood, forgetful of the sea. In shining silence, and it seemed to me That silence quelled the stars and reigned supreme !

And terribly I felt there was no stir But only silence in the heart of her. And silence in her soul ! — Then was I hurled

Back into life, and woke, and knew that she. In moonlit silence, somewhere in the world Waited alone and motionless for me.

XVI

Her eyes are spacious as the starlight is;

Her brows are clear and pale as porphyry;

Her breasts are hueless as young ivory.

Save where they crimson, wounded by a kiss. Her beauty wears the mood of Nemesis;

She is aloof from Time and Memory;

Her hands were shaped for love, and utterly

Her lip's deep curve was carved and stained for this. I will alone, in silence, go to her

And feel beneath my kiss her pulses stir.

And in her hair the perfume of Love's breath; And she will understand and bear with me

The joy of life, the pain, the mystery;

The thought, the fear, the loneliness of death.

XVII

We strayed in Time's dream-haunted night And watched the voiceless stars of thought That thro' the warp of darkness wrought Their frail and faithful threads of light.

But when life's passion blurred our sight, We cried, "It dawns! Desire has brought That guide our souls have vainly sought For life, the way-worn eremite!"

Yet from the dazzled eyes of youth The fire, subdued to sunset, cleared At last, and we were left with truth:

For there, above the sunset's bars. Still changeless and on high, appeared The boundless night, the steadfast stars.

XVIII

We loved the moon in strange sweet ways, The moon that loved Endymion; We loved the stars that one by one Swelled thro' the sunset's golden haze.

We loved the skies of chrysoprase. Pale violet and vermillion, — The skies that soon must yield the sun; We loved our proud, impassioned days.

We knew the gain of love is love. We knew mere life is happiness. We knew nor grief nor death can prove

That love is lost or life is less : — We guessed the vaster scope thereof. Closed in the cosmic consciousness.

XIX

She said: "Heartbreaks — yet, strangely, into song! Then, when I leave thee, is there nothing lost? God knows, in your account and mine, the cost, Tho' all of life must pay and life be long,

Is not too much ! yet day by day the strong Monotony may blunt the edge of pain And leave us joyless, till we wake again To find our lives have done the Truth much wrong.

Nay ! for the present and ineffable flame That kindles at the core of life, shall last Beyond remembrance ! Time shall never tame

The Truth, but like a pillared watch-fire It still shall cheer our pilgrimage and cast New light to guide the quest of soul's desire!"

XX

When she returns to me, when there is sound And motion of her, and perfume of her. And light and laughter of her eyes that were The stars whither my homeless life was bound, —

When she returns and all my days resound With Love's clear voice, who is her chorister, And all my heart is shaken with the stir Of Love's wide wings, and all my life is crowned

With her and her delight and her desire.

And all the night long, strong and swift as fire. Her deep caress responds to my embrace, —

When she returns what shall I offer thee. Upon thine altars in thy dwelling-place, O God of Love, when she returns to me?

XXI

What save her memory has Time left to me? The memory of the twilight of her hair, The memory of her breast, profound and bare. And of her mouth the dazzled memory !

For Memory, in the paradise that we

Seemed in Love's morning of the world to share. Wanders alone, and, thro' the stagnant air, Shows her small light in the obscurity.

And Memory too shall perish, as the stream Of time flows ceaseless and resistless on ! Yet, when again Love makes our twain souls one.

May we not glimpse, thro' life's dissolving dream, Rays of imperishable light that seem Dawn in the dark depths of oblivion.

XXII

Remembrance is a desolate loneliness: Alone we watch the light of life's lost days Fade, strange and spectral, in the soundless ways Of immemorial time, forever less.

The lustre of her living loveliness.

Soft as a song's most tense and tender phrase. Seems like a windless sunset's golden haze. Arched by the nightfall of forgetfulness.

Gone is the perfume of her naked breast. Gone are her hands' caress, her lips' desire: And in the House where once the feast was spread.

The chambers garnished for a nobler guest. Amid the scattered ashes of Love's fire. Pale Memory crouches, weeping o'er the dead.

XXIII

I KNOW in some far, fabled place, Some land of old, immortal things. The thrilled remembrance of our springs Returns with spring to vex her peace.

Hearkening with pale impassioned face As Life's faint fingers sweep the strings. She hears an inward voice that sings The Love too strong for Time and Space.

She knows, how much soever the loss Of days unshared is loss indeed. Yet stars shine up the endless sky.

That bear, from heart to heart across, Still the foreverlasting need. The love too greatly lived to die!

XXIV

I THOUGHT she came in hushed and secret wise And stood in silence close beside me here. Mantled in some gold-glimmering atmosphere. Deep as the light of sunset-splendid skies.

Then, with her breast's smooth curve, her lucent eyes, Haunted with visions of the lonely soul. Her high white face, she seemed the mythic goal Of some fantastic, fabled enterprise.

Then, till my thirst was quenched, my hunger fed, I seemed, with hands that clung and lips that kissed. To hold and to possess her utterly;