On the Death of her Body

It is a thought breaking the granite heart
Time has given me, that my one treasure
Your limbs, those passion-vines, your bamboo body

Should age and slacken, rot
Some day in a ghastly clay-stopped hole.
They led me to the mountains beyond pleasure

Where each is not gross body or blank soul
But a strong harp the wind of genesis
Makes music in. Such resonant music

That I was Adam, loosed by your kiss
From time's hard bond, and you
My love, in the world's first summer stood

Plucking the flowers of the abyss.


James K. Baxter
This is Baxter again. I came to know it because Charles Brasch told me that this was Baxter's best poem. It may well be: Brasch was a shrewd critic; certainly much better than Baxter, who was a hopeless critic of his own work: he actually tho'rt his best poem was Henley Pub. (Don't ask). Too successful too young. Wish I had that problem.

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