I want no horns to rouse me up to-night, And trumpets make too clamorous a ring To fit my mood, it is so weary white I have no wish for doing any thing. A music coaxed from humming strings would please; Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences Across a sunset wall where some Marquise Picks a pale rose amid strange silences. Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh, Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet And it is dark, I hear her feet no more. A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank. A drunken moon ogling a sycamore, Running long fingers down its shining flank. A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown, Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass. Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown- Kiss me, red lips, and then pass-pass. Music, you are pitiless to-night. And I so old, so cold, so languorously white. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM by RICHARD ALDINGTON THE LITANY OF THE DARK PEOPLE by COUNTEE CULLEN DEEP IN THE QUIET WOOD by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON MADMAN OF THE SOUTH SIDE by CLARENCE MAJOR |