LA CHEVELURE
O billows flowing o’er the shoulders bare!
O curls! O perfume sweet beyond belief!
Here in this bower to people the night air
With all the memories sleeping in this hair
I long to shake it like a handkerchief!
Fierce Afric and the languorous Orient,
All a vast world, distant, nay, almost dead,
Within this aromatic wood is pent;
My soul beloved floats upon thy scent
As other souls have music for a bed.
I will go out where full-veined man and tree
Swoon daylong in the sultry summer’s heat—
Strong tresses be the barque which carries me:
Thou boldest a bright dream, O ebon sea,
Of sails, flames, rowers, on a splendid fleet;
A harbour where through every sense are rolled
Vast sweeping waves of perfume, sound, and hue,
Where vessels gliding over moire and gold
Stretch up great arms to heaven to enfold
The glory of the everlasting blue.
There waits for me delicious drunkenness
In this dark sea which holds those other seas;
My spirit in the gentle main’s caress
Shall know once more the old rich idleness,
Infinite rockings of embalmèd ease.
