To AUGUSTUS JOHN
Hear the hymn of the body of man:
This is how the world began;
In these tangles of mighty flesh
The stuff of the earth is moulded afresh.
What Struggles and cries in eyes and cheeks?
The stir of the sap that awakes and seeks
To give again the gift it receives
And burgeon into buds and leaves;
The sadness and the ardour of life,
Violent animal peace, the strife
Of woman's instinct and man's blood
With patterns of beauty and rules of good.
Here nature is, alive and untamed,
Unafraid and unashamed;
Here man knows woman with the greed
Of Adam's wonder, the primal need.
The spirit of life cries out and hymns
In all the muscles of these limbs;
And the holy spirit of appetite
Wakes the browsing body with morning light.
