Poems (Bibesco)/XIX Banishment

by Elizabeth Bibesco

XIX BANISHMENT

Could you but walk but always you must fly;
I am so weary of your tireless wings.
Why must you make me perfect with a lie?
I am so hungry for imperfect things.

Why should I be this phantom of desire
Planted amidst the glitter of the stars?
I crave the smoky flicker of a fire,
And some small battle with its pride of scars.

You have condemned me to these unsought skies,
You who can worship but who cannot love,
Whose icy vision turns unseeing eyes
On all the mysteries that life can prove.

Must you adore me as if I were dead?
And all my cherished weaknesses were vain?
Why should you put a halo round my head
When I have asked you for a daisy chain?

Give me one little folly that is mine!
Why should I be the captive of your art—
A flawless image prisoned in a shrine,
Far from the wanton tarnish of the heart,

You do not know the turmoil and the tangles
The tugging mysteries that living brings;
Your pure perfection stretches till it strangles
The stumbling loveliness of little things.

Could I but break your dream and make you see
A cloudy morning and a starless night,
Some splinters of a broken ecstasy
The many fragments that are called delight.

But your hard dream has conquered even fate!
I shall for ever sit upon my throne
Removed from hope or doubt, from love or hate—
A ghost of beauty that you call your own.