The poison which is lust. Spirit was given
To use life as a sense for ecstasy;
Life mixt with Spirit must exult beyond
Sex-madden'd men and sex-serving women,
Into some rapture where sweet fleshly love
Is as the air wherein a music rings.
But blood hath captured Spirit; Spirit hath given
The strength of its desire of joy to make
What ecstasy it may of woman's beauty,
And of this only, doing no more than train
The joys of blood to be more keen and cunning;
As men have trained and tamed wild lives of the forests,
Breeding them to more excellent shape and size
And tireless speed, and to know the words of men.
So the wise masterful Spirit rules the joys
That come all fierce from roaming the dark blood;
They are broken to his desire, they are wily for him,
A pack of lusts wherewith the Spirit hunts
Pleasure; and the chief prey the pleasure hid
In woman.

_1st Woman_.
What joys are these?

_Vashti_.
What joys?
The joys of rutting beasts, tamed to endure,
Tamed to be always swift to answer Spirit,
Yet fiercer for their taming, wilder hungers;
So that the Spirit, if he hunt them not,
Fears to be torn by them in mutiny.
Now know you woman's beauty! 'Tis these joys,
The heat of the blood's desires, changed and mastered
By the desire of spirit, trained to serve
Spirit with lust, spirit with woman enjoy'd.

_2nd Woman_.
Queen, I am beautiful, and cannot boast
Thy subtle thinking; and to one like me,
What matters whence come beauty, so I have it?
Let it be but the witless mating of beasts,
Tamed and curiously knowing itself
And cunning in its own delight: What then?
The nightingale desires his little lass,
And that brings out of his heart a radiant song;
A man desires a woman, and for song
Out of his heart comes beauty, that like flame
Reaches towards her, and covers her limbs with light.
If it so please thee, say that neither loves
Aught but his life's desire, fashioning it
Adorably to marvellous song and beauty.
What then? Enough that the wonder lights on me,
To me is paid the worship of the wonder.

_Vashti_.
O well I know how strong we are in man;
His senses have our beauty for their god,
And his delight is built about us like
Towering adoration, housing worship.--
The spirit of man may dwell in God: the world,
From the soft delicate floor of grass to those
Rafters of light and hanging cloths of stars,
Is but the honour in God's mind for man,
Wrought into glorious imagination.
But women dwel