Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EROS, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EROS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Through all the roar and strife of sun-smit day
Last Line: And god, fixed ever in the thought of death.
Subject(s): London; Pleasure


THROUGH all the roar and strife of sun-smit day,
Deep in a dark lair do I lie and sleep.
Without the myriads rage, or laugh, or weep;
I heed them not till sunlight ebbs away.
But when, beneath the electric lamps' warm glow,
Lust slow uncurls like an enormous flower
Over the city, then I know my hour:
I rise, and like an amorous cat I go
To watch my children at the appointed task
Of draining Pleasure's cup down to the lees;
To know that mankind reels in drunkenness
And splendour towards the abyss, is all I ask.
I stand upon a street of infamy,
About me surge the Bacchanals of night:
And watching them, I do not turn my sight
To where vague stars swarm on an empty sea.
For there is laughter, dance, the fire of eyes:
Illusion's blossoms from the pavement spring:
Their odour, like hot fire, in blood can bring
Explosions of bright-glittering ecstasies.
In every stolen glance, in every touch,
In every detail of lust's solemn rite
Repeated endlessly, I drink delight:
Yet fevered, know my thirst is over-much.
In man the Satyr-God, to quell whose pain
New generations shall the old repeat;
And women tramp along the enticing street,
And cities blaze with lurid lights again:
In shock of straining flesh, in fierce desire,
I gather up a myriad perishing flowers.
All day-dreams pale before my unreal fire,
Before my dreadful death-creative powers.
I bind my slaves down with the fetters of
Roses, I lash them. Kisses are my rods;
I sicken them with sweet surfeit of love,
And then abandon them to lesser gods.
Let the day make of them that which it may!
In all still burns my artificial spark
Which, night on night, shall blaze forth, fiercely gay,
Till all the worlds and suns grow cold and dark:
For I am Eros, lawless law of life,
For I am birth and death and new life won
Through woe and joy, destroyed, remade in strife:
Past, present, future, infinite, and one.
Tri-formed am I: read what this riddle saith!
For I am Man, desiring earth to sway,
And Woman, seeking my own pain to stay,
And God, fixed ever in the thought of Death.





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