Yet ere the votive music fades
By far blue seas and quiet glades,
Faint and yet fainter hope shall dart
Possessive to thy sleepless heart;
Loveliest thou of those that found
Life broken, futile and unsound,
That in thine ageless searching saw
Flower-meshed change and fettered law,
And in the wayward weft of feet
Passed fearlessly and bright, but fleet.
Close, marble lids, on gentian eyes,
Wiser than those that made thee wise;
Cease, silken breasts, to moan and stir,
Beauty takes back a dream to her,
Fragile and shining, pale and proud,
Beyond the vigil of the crowd,
To the utmost, endless, inset shrine
Where all things are, and all divine.’ ”
By far blue seas and quiet glades,
Faint and yet fainter hope shall dart
Possessive to thy sleepless heart;
Loveliest thou of those that found
Life broken, futile and unsound,
That in thine ageless searching saw
Flower-meshed change and fettered law,
And in the wayward weft of feet
Passed fearlessly and bright, but fleet.
Close, marble lids, on gentian eyes,
Wiser than those that made thee wise;
Cease, silken breasts, to moan and stir,
Beauty takes back a dream to her,
Fragile and shining, pale and proud,
Beyond the vigil of the crowd,
To the utmost, endless, inset shrine
Where all things are, and all divine.’ ”
He paused, he smiled, he faced the night
And faded, the Hermaphrodite.
And faded, the Hermaphrodite.
THE END
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