For her the proud stars bend, she sees, As never yet, dim sorceries Breaking in silver magic wide On the blue midnight's swirling tide, With arrowy mist and spearing flame That out of central beauty came. The innumerate splendours of the skies Are thronging in her shining eyes; Her body is a fount of light In the plumed garden of the night; Her lily breasts have known the bliss Of the cool air's unfaltering kiss. She is made one with loveliness, Enfranchised from the world's distress, Given utterly to joy, a bride With a bride's hunger satisfied. Now, though she heavily walk, and know The sharp premonitory throe And the life leaping in the gloom Of her most blessed and chosen womb, It is as though foot never was So light upon the glimmering grass. She is shot through with the stars' light, Helped by their calm, unwavering might. In tall, lone-swaying gravity Stoops to her there the eternal tree Whose myriad fruitage ripens on Beneath the light of moon and sun.
Lone shadows move, The night air stirs; This hour of dying Dreams was hers.
In this dusk place Her throat gleamed white In glimmering beauty Of starlight.
Nightingales sang Exultant bliss; The snared stars saw us Sway, and kiss.
Now the bats whirr, The barn owls hoot, Her loveliness Is dust, is mute.
Peace comes not here, No dream-bird trills: They haunt her lodging In the hills.
Bring me some oranges on blue china, With a jade-and-silver spoon, And drowse on your silken mats beside me In the burning noon.
Bring me red wine in cups of crystal, With melons on chrysoprase, And place them softly with jewelled fingers Before my gaze.
Hasten, my dove of scented whisperings, My lily, my Xacán! Bring bubbling pipes for the cool shadows, And my peacock fan.
And bid Isárrib, my chief musician, Weave quiet songs within, That my soul in the circles of a great glamour May float and spin.
And O, you gaudy and whistling parrots In your high, flowered maze, Still your harsh, petulant quarrelling With the mocking jays.
Ah, my brave Vitellius! Ah, your tastes are marvellous! When you eat your singing birds Do you leave the bones--and words, The proud music in the throat?... Not a note, not a note? Doubtless they were not so pleasant As the brains of a young pheasant, Or flamingoes' tongues, whose duty Never was to utter beauty. But they sang, but they fluted And your rasping lies confuted, And your ugliness laid bare With a lyric in the air. So you bought them on a string, Dangling balls that used to sing, And you gave them to the cook With a fat and happy look.