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I YOU are like startled song-wings against my heart | |
| Which flutters like a harp-string wounded | |
| By too much quivering music. | |
| You cover me with a blue dream-robe | |
| Whose silk ripples out like imaged water…. | 5 |
| And when, for a moment, you leave, | |
| I am a black sky awaiting its moon. | |
| |
II If I could be moon-light scattered out | |
| Over the blowing dark-blue hair | |
| Of kneeling, flowing crystal breezes | 10 |
| Breathing a litany of pale odors, | |
| If I could be moonlight scattered out | |
| Over the whispers meeting in your heart, | |
| The marriage of our souls would be | |
| No more complete than now. | 15 |
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III Like a delicately absent-minded guest, | |
| Your smile sometimes lingers after | |
| Your lips are solemn. | |
| And once I saw a tear in your eye | |
| Playing hide-and-go-seek with some leaping, dimpled memory. | 20 |
| These things, to me, are like scattered perfume | |
| Wavering down upon my heart. | |
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IV The struggle of a smile craving birth | |
| Invades her little weeping faun’s face, | |
| And even makes her tear-drops leap…. | 25 |
| She smiles as only grief can smile: | |
| A smile like ashes caught within | |
| A tiny whirlwind of light; | |
| When the light goes, the ashes drape her face | |
| Till even her lips seem grey. | 30 |
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V Wave your veils to pallid gavottes, | |
| Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs, | |
| And catch them breathlessly against your breast! | |
| You have prayed too long in your sinking temple— | |
| Night has come, with her fumbling release, | 35 |
| Her moment in which you may play with sad thoughts. | |
| So, wave your veils to pallid gavottes, | |
| Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs | |
| And catch them breathlessly against your breast. | |
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