Classic Poem

No syrup or perfume
is like your prattle. . . .
What spiced and sugared
lozenge in
your mouth will melt
its honey and amber
when oh virgin alone
with me you speak?

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

To the glory of night
you turn your face,
fairer than the roses
at the window;
and your golden tresses
stream on the breeze
and your troubled face
chances to move me. . . .

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

On a cabal a comet
pounces in the gloom.
It is a weeping emblem,
a sign of song.
Point and stroke
compose the star;
it figures a note,
depicts a tear.

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

Invisible flock,
the cranes pass over,
beating high
their mighty wings;
dismal, harsh,
they cry and rail,
as if bewailing
a disaster.

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

A hovering cloudlet,
rising, falling,
languid, flaccid,
solemn, white,
feigns in doubly
symbolic aspect
the bridal veil,
the winding-sheet.

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

By the gauze that takes
on magic form,
Scorpio queries,
while his alpha
is budding crimson,
bleeding portent. . . .
And love and grief
whet separate arms!

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

Ah! would the vile earth
that through the vast
abysses wheels
its slavish track
might end its rounds
and be dispelled,
dissolved in wisps
of tenuous rack.

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

The sea's faint wave
stirs on the shore,
flooding, drowning
nor peoples nor aught.
Of Sodom's fire
I see no ember,
and the red arrow
of lightning is quivered.

Your marriage-feast
will be to-morrow.

Ah Tirsa! already
the hour and my heart
misgives and my soul
in a lark's trill is flown.
Dawn unfolds
her nacreous veil
and Lucifer raises
his pale pearl.