Vigils

I

It is repose lit up, nor fever, nor languor, on the bed or on the meadow.

It is the friend nor ardent nor weak. The friend.

It is the loved one nor tormenting nor tormented. The loved one.

The air and the world unsought. Life.

—Was it quite this?

—And the dream cooled.

II

The building's skeleton gets the light again. From both sides of the hall, negligible décors, harmonic elevations join. The wall across from the watcher is a psychological succession of frieze sections, atmospheric bands and geological accidents.—Intense and rapid dream of sentimental groups with beings of every character amidst every appearance.

III

The vigil's lamps and carpets make the sound of waves, at night, along the hull and about steerage.

The vigil's ocean, like Amelia's breasts.

The tapestries, halfway down, coppices of lace emerald-tinted, the vigil's turtledoves fly at.

.......................................

The dark foyer's plaque, real suns of strands; ah! well of magics, sole view of dawn, this time.

Mystic

On the bankside angels turn their woolen skirts in steel-and-emerald pastures.

Fields of flame leap to the peak of the hillock. On the left the arete's compost is stomped on by all homicides and battles, and all disastrous noise runs its curve. Behind the arete on the right, the line of Orients, of progress.

And while the band at the top of the picture is formed of the turning leaping rumor of seashells and human nights,

The blooming sweetness of the stars and the heavens and the rest descends upon the bankside, like a basket—against our face, and makes the abyss blossoming and blue beneath.

Sunup

I embraced the summer sunup.

Nothing yet budged on the face of the palaces. The tide was neap. Shadow camps had not left the road in the wood. I walked, awaking keen warm breaths; and gems gazed, and wings arose noiselessly.

The first enterprise was, in the path already full of fresh and pallid brilliance, a flower which told me its name.

I laughed at the blond wasserfall tousling through the pines; at the silvery summit I recognized the goddess.

Then I lifted one by one her veils. In the lane, waving my arms. On the plain, where I announced her to the cock. In the great city she fled amongst steeples and domes, and, running like a beggar on the marble quays, I chased her.

At the top of the road, near a laurel wood, I wrapped her with her gathered veils, and I felt a little her immense body. Sunup and the child fell at the bottom of the wood.

Upon waking, it was noon.

Flowers

From a golden step—among cordons of silk, gray gauzes, green velvets, crystal disks that darken like bronze in the sun—I see the digitalis open on a carpet filigreed of silver, hair and eyes.

Pieces of yellow gold strewn over agate, mahogany pillars supporting a dome of emeralds, bouquets of white satin and wands of rubies ring the water rose.

Like a god with enormous blue eyes and shapes of snow, the sea and sky attract to terraces of marble the crowd of young and strong roses.