Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/317

 

In a fluttering cloak I strained unto the gloom
And upraised a melody from my breast,
As the storm did the forest in enraptured shouting.
In wild fire my arms outstretched themselves,
Vehemently clutched the dancing turmoil
And snatched it close to my throbbing breast
So that my heart and the forest
Beat wild and dark in a single stormy pulsing.—
With my time-old abode in my arms
I slowly glided into all my dark life,
Deep, ever deeper, from abyss to abyss
And through all reeling abysses,
So that I saw myself swimming, creeping, and growling again,
As at the dark beginning of time.
As I sank down, my head was bowed
Heavily upon the rim of Being,
My mouth foamed,
And twitched with a crazed smile of weeping,—
For wormwood of life and power of the storm it had drunk.
And like a dying lover
Whose last thoughts gorge bleeding on his love,
So my thoughts clutched storm and forest
And were engulfed. . .