More haunting music, more luring love
Round thy sinuous form hold sway
Than the daughters of earth have knowledge of
For thou art the daughter of fading day,
Touched with all hope's decay.
And the subtle languor, the prismic glow
Of a ripeness overpast
Burns through the wonderful curving flow
Of thy garments; and they who love thee know
A loathing at the last.
For they are the lovers of living things—
Stars, sunlight, morning's breath;
But thou, for all that thy beauty brings
Such songs as the summer scattereth—
Thou art of the House of Death.
. . . . . .
But there was one in thy golden day
Who saw thy poppied bloom,
And loved not thee but the heart's decay
That filled thee, and clasped it to be alway
His chosen and sealèd doom.
He who this living portrait wrought,
Outlasting time's control,
A dark and bitter nectar sought
Welling from poisoned streams that roll
Through deserts of the soul.
Ah, dreamer! come at last where dreams
Can serve no more thy need,
Who hast by such bright silver streams
Walked with thy soul that now earth seems
A waste where love must bleed—
Thou whom such matchless beauty filled
Of visions frail and lone,
For thee all passion now is stilled;
Thy heart, denied the life it willed,
Desireth rather none.
And thee allure no verdant blooms
That with fresh joy suspire;
But blossoms touched with coming glooms,
And weariness, and spent desire,
Draw to thy spirit nigher.
Wherefore is nothing in thy sight
Propitious save it be
Brushed with the wings of hovering night,
Worn with the shadow of delight,
Sad with satiety.