Through the night you showed me all Beauty's silent ritual. After dinner, shoulders bare In the level candle flare, When you raised your pumiced arms Like two swans in swimming billows, And hands clasped behind your hair, Rippled down into the pillows; Suddenly old Attic charms Touched the shadows everywhere: Columns, altar, and a spring, And you poised, an ageless thing Svelt as any moonlit blade Still in Beauty's accolade. Nothing wanted, nothing said. Sylvan moon instead of candle. Beauty by a pool you are, Nude of girdle, veil and sandal, Watching a reflected star. Marble thigh and marble breast Not so formed to be possessed, Be possessed and leave me starved. Marble once forever carved -- Beauty silent through the night In eternal candle light. Mind not made to stoop to me In congeniality, But in great and secret ways To diffuse the moonlight rays, Turning prismical, serene -- Silver, lilac, beryl green -- Keeping contours straight and clean Where the lights and shadows meet. Let me be the star beneath The mirror pool beneath your feet -- Still as wonder's bated breath. Or if curious and kind You would reach to me to find In exquisite ecstacy What it is, the star you see; Stretching down a pearly toe, Touch the fountain of my mind. Draw back! See the ripples go. See the stars and planets shake, All the universe a lake Dancing to the tune we know. Laugh the ripples out of sight. What have they to do with you? -- Starlit fancies, spirit billows. Dawn is peering through the willows And the mirror quiets quite, Rosy with a new reflection. Do you weary of perfection? Do you stir among the pillows? Beauty, are you woman too? |