coolness of sleep without dreams,
heavy with promise of endless to-morrows,
with goals yet undreamed still receding
under the white fog of daybreak
down the frost grey path.
II
Black wind,
wine sharp with tang of snow new fallen
on far glittering ranges
and acridness of burning stubble,
clear from our blood the dust
of silted memories,
blow from our eyes the scales
that cloud with haze of pain
the peach bloom on distant heights,
sting us to such bitterness of desire
that not the fiery gold of untold noontides
shall slake our vengeance,
for we are avid of the sunlight,
avid as a slave that climbs
staggering from the reek of blind pits
to stand unfettered
high on the windy threshold of the world,
tiptoe with still insatiable longing
for singing orchards that dream
on warm cliff edges,
for burning plains where the marsh pools
hold in their poisonous depths the motionless image
of lonely columns,
for festering cities that bask amid tawny sands,
inscrutable as the eyes that smoulder
in the robe of the slow-stepping peacock
when he paces vaingloriously
up and down the porphyry balustrade
in evenings pungent with eucalyptus,
before the emperor's bedroom.
