Classic Poem

Although your red lips speak alluring words
And from your lowered eyes the same beguilement issueth,
Although your wisdom runneth far and wide
Gathering fragrance to your eloquence,
Wistful I look on you—
Those charms fall powerless;
Though by the selfsame sorceries conjured
That erst be-spelled,
I am no longer yours.
For sake of one whose lightest breath is flame,
Whose glance is azure ether
And whose voice more cruel than strange
Magics or old pleasure,
Myself I lost beneath the shadowing Eros
High ascending,
No longer am I yours;
By love immured—
Seeing you wondrous still and all-to-be-desired—
Muffled I grope—
You are but pantomime,
Helpless as longing in a dream to reach me while
His mounting fires consume my will.

Take your bewildering way—
Nor pause to harken by my garden door again,
For she who sang of you
Is silent,
Though she hears your step recede—
Within his flowered walls
Her heart is listening for wings.