And before my passion’s cup I fully drain,
In your heaving bosom hid I would remain,
Weave around my neck your lustrous waving tresses,
Cool my boiling blood in love’s sweet caresses.
Like a desert steed my passion paws its impatient feet,
Would your breath destroy me with its scorching heat,
And your arms embrace, my limply yielding form,
Till I would feebly totter like an oak tree in a storm.
WINTER
Winter speeds across the plain,
Thunders drum the marching strain,
And what once within me blossomed
Will not bear new fruit again.
Winter settles in the park
Where the trees stand bleak and stark;
With a merry song who’ll cheer me
When it’s cold and when it’s dark?
Winter roams about the grove,
Silenced birds leave in a drove;
’Twill be hard to dream of Maytime
And of roses that once throve.
Winter hastens towards the field
Where frosts have cast their chilling shield.
And I fear that what once pained me
Will again new anguish yield.
Winter grips the forest’s wreath,
Blows across the moss and heath;
And I know not how I can live
When my song no more shall breathe.
A LETTER
I tried to write to you that in your eye
My heart bloomed forth into a rose again,
That deep within me, where emotions lie
A nightingale sings love’s most tender strain.
That many tales are whispered in its den,
And many buds breathe in its flowered glen;
Into a garden my heart changed at your call;
But all I write, I love you above all.
62
