LONELINESS I love,
And that is why they have called me forth into the streets.
Loneliness I love,
But the crowd has clutched at me with fawning hands, . . .
My spirit speaks
In the scented quietness of a divine melancholy
Murmuring the tunes
For which my dreams are the delicate instruments.
The shadowy silences
Have made me beautiful and dressed me in velvet dignities,
And that is why
The noise of tambourines has maddened my soul into dancing,
And I am clad
In the lust-lipped whispering of furtive caresses.
Holiness I love,
And touching the virginal pierced feet of martyrs,
The crucified feet
Nestled among lilies and hallowing candles.
Holiness I love
And the melodious absolution falling on my sins.
But that is why
Blasphemous priests have forced my hands to tear
The vesture of secrecy
Which hides the human nakedness of God.
***
1918
And that is why they have called me forth into the streets.
Loneliness I love,
But the crowd has clutched at me with fawning hands, . . .
My spirit speaks
In the scented quietness of a divine melancholy
Murmuring the tunes
For which my dreams are the delicate instruments.
The shadowy silences
Have made me beautiful and dressed me in velvet dignities,
And that is why
The noise of tambourines has maddened my soul into dancing,
And I am clad
In the lust-lipped whispering of furtive caresses.
Holiness I love,
And touching the virginal pierced feet of martyrs,
The crucified feet
Nestled among lilies and hallowing candles.
Holiness I love
And the melodious absolution falling on my sins.
But that is why
Blasphemous priests have forced my hands to tear
The vesture of secrecy
Which hides the human nakedness of God.
***
1918
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