You fogs of smouldering days, who cast sadness over the souls of men!
Glowing, briny fumes of the unknown oceans of forgotten dead
Within whom wither the groves of blossoming moods as when
Corrosive ashes fall upon the billowy scent of crimson red.
Who melted two lights flown together? Who darkened my smile on your cheeks?
Who gave to our voice the strange sound that from our soul escapes?
Who stunned the gentle quiver of caress? Who threw in with a shriek
A ferment, disturbing the intoxicant flames of our grapes?
Why did the summer’s waste wither your lillies upon my garden embankment?
Like a floating Island cast off the shore, you are drifting, shattered and torn.
In the scent of my memories bitters the essence of your enchantment,
Wherein are submersed the stars of spent nights, and the lights of a risen morn.
And like a woman whose pleasures one has tasted, strange now your longing seems
My eyes no longer shed your tears in a brotherly unified beat.
And only above the graves of bygone Springs, in the graveyard of wasted dreams
Like a loved one’s lifeless phantom, our souls again will meet.
A QUIET PAIN
Across a soft black rug that stretched along my bed
Woven of the yams of Night into a shadowed gossamer dress
You came my Love, and poured a cup of red,
The bitter wine of your caress . . . .
You pierced and penetrated like a light’s feeble wave,
You burned within my nerves as the cold touch of death,
And buried in your arms as in a cold live grave,
I awoke fatigued with the burden of your breath.
I measured the gulf of seconds with many years’ hasty flight,
The vanished scent of Springs, poured into the seconds’ spheres
Through the curtain of our dreams dawned eternity’s faint light
Like the break of a new day appears.
To the Secret’s distant poles, silently together we went
Where in the rays and facets of sparkling chandeliers
Played the Eternal’s miracle, where the darkened heavens bent
As if set with flames of sapphires and burning tears.
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