Out of the Flame

* * * * *

Up flames a flamingo over the fandango,
Glowing like a fire, and gleaming like a ruby.
From Guadalajara to Guadalupe
It flies—in flying drops a feather
... And the snatching dwarfs stop dancing—and fight together.

From my high window,
From my high window in a southern city,
I peep through the slits of the shutters,
Whose steps of light
Span darkness like a ladder.
Throwing wide the shutters
I let the streets into the silent room
With sudden clatter;
Walk out upon the balcony
Whose curving irons are bent
Like bows about to shoot—
Bows from which the mortal arrows
Cast from dark eyes, dark-lashed
And shadowed by mantillas,
Shall in the evening
Rain down upon men's hearts
Paraded here, in southern climes,
More openly.
But, at this early moment of the day,
The balconies are empty;
Only the sun, still drowsy-fingered,
Plucks, pizzicato, at the rails,
Draws out of them faint music
Of rain-washed air,
Or, when each bell lolls out its idiot tongue,
When Time lets drop his cruel scythe,
They sing in sympathy.
The sun, then, plucks these irons,
As far below,
That child
Draws his stick along the railings.
The sound of it brings my eye down to him....
Oh heart, dry heart,
It is yourself again!
How nearly are we come together!
If, at this moment,
One long ribbon was unfurled
From me to him,
I should be shown
Above, in a straight line—
A logical growth,
And yet,
I wave, but he will not look up;
I call, but he will not answer.

From where I stand
The beauty of the early morning
Suffocates me;
It is as if fingers closed round my heart.
The light flows down the hills in rivulets,
So you could gather it up in the cup of your hands,
While pools,
The cold eyes of the gods,
Are cradled in those hollows.
Cool are the clouds,
Anchored in the heaven;
Green as ice are they,
To temper the heat in the valleys
With arches of violet shadow.
You can hear from the distant woods
The thud of the centaurs' hoofs
As they gallop down to drink,
Shatter the golden roofs
Of the trees, for swift as the wind
They gallop down to the brink
Of the waters that echo their laughter,
Cavernous as rolling of boulders down hills;
Lolling, they lap at the gurgling waters.

* * * * *

But nearer rises the sound,
Red, ragged as his comb,
Of a cock crowing;
A bird flies up to me at the window,
Leaping, like music, with regular rhythm,
Sinks down, then, to the city beneath.

III