Still, the kiss was a touch of bitterness on my mouth Like salt, burning in. And my hand withered in your hand. For you were straining with a wild heart, back, back again, Back to those children you had left behind, to all the æons of the past. And I was here in the under-dusk of the Isar.
At home, we leaned in the bedroom window Of the old Bavarian Gasthaus, And the frogs in the pool beyond thrilled with exuberance, Like a boiling pot the pond crackled with happiness, Like a rattle a child spins round for joy, the night rattled With the extravagance of the frogs, And you leaned your cheek on mine, And I suffered it, wanting to sympathise.
At last, as you stood, your white gown falling from your breasts, You looked into my eyes, and said: "But this is joy!" I acquiesced again. But the shadow of lying was in your eyes, The mother in you, fierce as a murderess, glaring to England, Yearning towards England, towards your young children, Insisting upon your motherhood, devastating.
Still, the joy was there also, you spoke truly, The joy was not to be driven off so easily; Stronger than fear or destructive mother-love, it stood flickering; The frogs helped also, whirring away. Yet how I have learned to know that look in your eyes Of horrid sorrow! How I know that glitter of salt, dry, sterile, sharp, corrosive salt! Not tears, but white sharp brine Making hideous your eyes.
I have seen it, felt it in my mouth, my throat, my chest, my belly, Burning of powerful salt, burning, eating through my defenceless nakedness. I have been thrust into white, sharp crystals, Writhing, twisting, superpenetrated.
Ah, Lot's Wife, Lot's Wife! The pillar of salt, the whirling, horrible column of salt, like a waterspout That has enveloped me! Snow of salt, white, burning, eating salt In which I have writhed.
Lot's Wife!--Not Wife, but Mother. I have learned to curse your motherhood, You pillar of salt accursed. I have cursed motherhood because of you, Accursed, base motherhood!
I long for the time to come, when the curse against you will have gone out of my heart. But it has not gone yet. Nevertheless, once, the frogs, the globe-flowers of Bavaria, the glow-worms Gave me sweet lymph against the salt-burns, There is a kindness in the very rain.