Classic Poem

The Black Harp

I play for your delight
On a Harp with seven black strings.
My harp is a sleepless night,
And here are the songs it sings.

I. " Fures-moi ... "

Choose not to swear your faith
By some shared ecstasy,
But by the body of this death —
The change in you and me.

Love's easy, when each kiss
Lets the warm Psyche out,
But bitter when the mouth of bliss
Wears the fixed grin of doubt.

If you would ease my heart
Swear by some day of pain,
When our sullen footsteps dragged apart
Just the length of habit's chain,

When you saw me proud and hard,
And I knew you weak of will,
The god in each debased and marred —
And we loved each other still.

II. Daphne

Youth, seize the nymph while morning's on your brow,
And in her eyes illimitable air,
When every willow is her shaken hair,
And her hand tapers from each laurel bough.

Hold her while noon is in your kiss; but when
The light of fantasy begins to set,
Weep not, O man, her waning face, but let
The nymph become the laurel once again.

III. White Death

I dreamed I lay upon the bitter ground,
A winter midnight black above my head —
The cold was on me like a pall of lead,
The white snow fell and fell without a sound,
In barbed flakes that probed me to the bone.
Even on my burning mouth they did not melt,
But falling, falling, turned it into stone
I woke.
It was your kisses I had felt.