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I JUST as my fingers on these keys | |
Make music, so the self-same sounds | |
On my spirit make a music too. | |
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Music is feeling then, not sound; | |
And thus it is that what I feel, | 5 |
Here in this room, desiring you, | |
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Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, | |
Is music. It is like the strain | |
Waked in the elders by Susanna: | |
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Of a green evening, clear and warm, | 10 |
She bathed in her still garden, while | |
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt | |
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The basses of their being throb | |
In witching chords, and their thin blood | |
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. | 15 |
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II In the green water, clear and warm, | |
Susanna lay. | |
She searched | |
The touch of springs, | |
And found | 20 |
Concealed imaginings. | |
She sighed | |
For so much melody. | |
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Upon the bank she stood | |
In the cool | 25 |
Of spent emotions. | |
She felt, among the leaves, | |
The dew | |
Of old devotions. | |
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She walked upon the grass, | 30 |
Still quavering. | |
The winds were like her maids, | |
On timid feet, | |
Fetching her woven scarves, | |
Yet wavering. | 35 |
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A breath upon her hand | |
Muted the night. | |
She turned | |
A cymbal crashed, | |
And roaring horns. | 40 |
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III Soon, with a noise like tambourines, | |
Came her attendant Byzantines. | |
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They wondered why Susanna cried | |
Against the elders by her side: | |
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And as they whispered, the refrain | 45 |
Was like a willow swept by rain. | |
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Anon, their lamps uplifted flame | |
Revealed Susanna and her shame. | |
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And then the simpering Byzantines, | |
Fled, with a noise like tambourines. | 50 |
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IV Beauty is momentary in the mind | |
The fitful tracing of a portal; | |
But in the flesh it is immortal. | |
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The body dies; the bodys beauty lives. | |
So evenings die, in their green going, | 55 |
A wave, interminably flowing. | |
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting | |
The cowl of Winter, done repenting. | |
So maidens die, to the auroral | |
Celebration of a maidens choral. | 60 |
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Susannas music touched the bawdy strings | |
Of those white elders; but, escaping, | |
Left only Deaths ironic scraping. | |
Now, in its immortality, it plays | |
On the clear viol of her memory, | 65 |
And makes a constant sacrament of praise. | |
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