A Stranger

‘Yes, I was Desdemona yesterday,’ She said to me a-sudden as we stood beside An antique vase of porphyry, Gazing upon the swaying crowd below. ‘Arms nervous, eastern eyes which flashed fierce fires, The coruscation of estival nights Glowing amid the all-encircling dark, These made my joy; The coiling hatred of the devil-snake, My pain. I saw the twitching of Othello’s hands, And died at twenty past eleven. To-morrow, in Verona, at a mask, I meet love’s arch-type glorified beyond Mere human manhood to Apollo’s self; And I, this magnificent lover’s love, Shall be a maiden in her fourteenth year For just three hours. ’Tis thus I live, and hate, and love, and die Night after night, In a superb and shameless prostitution, Leaving self in my wardrobe, a disguise Worn only in the daylight of the world To hide these many souls. Ghosts, born in gardens where the poet treads, Resolve themselves into my being: Alone, I merely stand in this death carnival Which you call life--a stranger.’