XLIII
How ebon rich, how wondrous, is your hair!
When here it floats beside me darkly free,
This is the vision that I seem to see:
A roof in Nineveh the Ancient where
Night long there pulses upward on the air
The breath of the great earth-breast’s heat fiercely,
A Titan’s passion like to, first set free
With blackness of the night, exhaustless, there.
A woman, passion-pale, with gems like rain,
Leans listless by stone parapets, again
Lifts arms voluptuous toward where afar
A rider’s armor shines beneath a star,
Her jewels all a-shiver as a pearl
When into ocean depths the sun-rays whirl.