Thou art present in my shadowiness
like the flight of a scarlet bird to one
by a grey closing in of evening houseled.

And thine early morning gladness peals
a sonorous efflulgence on my life
with its bell of crystal and of silver

shaken in a hush like that of death,
snatching me from the terror of Good Friday
to the jubilance of flowered Easter.

From its dereliction by the grace
of thy spring's sortilege my head absolved
is in a rose and amaranthine turmoil.

Not otherwise the cloud—a passenger
aboard the ardent vessel of the dawn—
gaudies its pennon's customary pallor.

And the instant once again possesses
the value of that drifting hope that day
labours to grapple to the hour's anchor.

The cajolement of the melody sung
by the marvelling illusion turns
to a crepuscular Hungarian violin.

An entreaty trembles in its throat
towards those pupils changing as the wave
pierced by the Evil One in thy saintly face.

Boldness I command to get to hiding,
feeling to follow to the same retreat,
for all that I possess of thy fair beauty

is a golden sepulchre for my sighs
and a shroud of snow for my desire
—aeroplane on reefs of sapphire wrecked.

I live a miracle; when I behold thee
the hour crumbles away into a second
as the flash into its scintillation.

Life draws me into its deep rhythm, the inner
embers feed a flame, forgotten spring
casts for me its spells upon the world.

Thine anagram is youth and grace and love,
simple, yet too hard for my delirium;
I would be, to disentangle thy web,

gardener in the garden of sweet torments,
hid by an abetting arras of blushes,
in thy lap of roses and of lilies,

on thy mouth of crimson hyacinth,
and a lingering sun of summer splendour
dallying in the ivy of thine eyes.

On a handspan of azure thine impress
alone alleviates my coward dusk,
like the dove of Venus the beautiful
poised on the cornices of evening.