In a garden, soul to soul we met and loved— Listless languor by stone-parapets, Leaf-dance ripple, sense of minor thirds, Stars above, a language not of words; Vows and raptures—life's sweetest flowerets. Roving minstrels strolled unto the feasts, Our thoughts upon their strings in tinselled air, To woodlands where clove-footed gods had sung; Where consenting dear Companionship had rung From bells that melted tenderly to prayer. Afar o'er dale translucent waters moved, Enthralling sounds through sequence of the hours. I was the Night and she the Moonlit-Glow, Her curls all ill-arranged and veil so low, O'er Passion wakening in this love of ours. I'm still the Night and there's the Moonlit-Glow, But as I see her ebb in Time's great sky, No more the sweetness of her love-wrung ray. That chaste white face is now conjured to clay Of hardest light. Erewhile, alone am I. With crawlings o'er me, numbness in the air, Upon my throat, my breast, my arms, my hair, Gliding skeletons arise to sight In elfish weeds and wands of swirling light— The horrors of a Beauty vilely used, Staring, ever doomed to stare—such hues Down-bending Parasite of circumstance. Shimmering procession and a giddy dance That overcrests the pathway of the clouds, Revels nebulous, that cheat the days In look malign and cold accusing gaze; Silver drooping rays of compromise, False most gems that shine beneath the stars; Phantasmagoria and a soulless glance, Waveless waters—and my eyes are fed On a Moonlit-Glow: 'twere better Death would wed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 4 by CONRAD AIKEN CAMPUS SONNET: BEFORE AN EXAMINATION by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET CONTRA MORTEM: THE BEING AS MEMORY by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE LITTLE FIRE IN THE WOODS by HAYDEN CARRUTH ON TALK OF PEACE AT THIS TIME by ROBERT FROST ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE, MY LITTLE ONE' by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |