POETRY

Like a beautiful, frail, seductive woman Who flings herself across her lover’s couch And wets his lips with desire— So you, too, Fling and stretch your long, lean, white-limbed body, Across the couch of Life And with your lips alluring, You chant your rhythmic, undulating, euphonious, melodious song, Into the heart of me. Vainly I try to tear myself From the bondage of your voice, And cast you off— But from far away, And deep down in the long unlived-in and barren valleys of my soul, I feel the breath of you. You are like pastures green, When one has lived forever with face pressed to the sand; You are like cool, moist rocks with moss between; You are like shadows of thin cypress trees Across a moonlit stream— Like rippling, twisting, sprays of foam Across the dark unfathomable sea. These things you seem to me. In you, Oh, Poetry, Lies the power to lift me up, And mad with frenzied exaltation To bear my spirit beyond the need of any mortal want. In you the power To beat upon my heart strings, And quivering, with your music, To toss for me weird, flaming words across my brain, And hear your rhythm in my soul beat back again. In you the power to dash me down— For in my desire to create a child of yours; And after infinite toil and labor pain, To find it deformed, weak, and not worthy of your name.