With cinnamon and nard His strange gay clothes were sweet, His lips were fanciful with fard, Red flames played ’round his feet.
Sharp dancing pointed flames, Detached as butterflies, He called them all by secret names, They were his ecstasies.
No love, no maiden bright Might woo him from his swoon, For he had tasted strange delight In lands beyond the moon.
What was his offense to you, You who sit thro’ dreamless days, Sifting thro’ your fingers slim Ashes in a porphyry vase?
Hatred makes your eyes grow hard, As you conjure forth his name From the dust that was his face, From the heart that was his flame.
Then she, lifting heavy eyes, Spoke: “When this man walked the world Him I loved, he loved not me; So his days to death I hurled.
“Dying, then, he touched my hand, Smiled and whispered, ‘I forgive’; This his vengeance on my soul, I must hate him while I live.”
Once I could love this season of the year, And watch the calm and delicate decline Of Summer gladly; I could see the pine Deep green on bluest sky, and laugh for cheer Of very living. Yet I’d fain appear Th’ unhurried gourmet, tasting of my wine, Lingering o’er memories of the purpled vine, Loath for each passing moment. Ah, my dear, Now like a careless child, I toss the hours Over my shoulder, I forget the sun, The dewy dawn, the white moon and the flowers. Like a tired pilgrim with his goal in view, Looking not right nor left, I run, I run To that bright day of days that brings me you.
I feel as murderers feel, who, having slain Their love, laugh with red hands and do not care. I took sweet Summer by her lovely hair, Bent her white throat, and gladly saw the stain Crimson her green leaf-gown of hill and plain. I would not wait for her last kiss, nor spare One splendid flying hour, for chill and fair Autumn, my love, comes near me thro’ the rain.
Pale with mysterious wonder, her deep eyes Are wells of wisdom; fugitive, astray From a blue land that dreams beyond the skies. ’Tis done. I lay young Summer on her pyre, And turning, burn thro’ distance to the day That brings me to the lips of my desire.
Whence came the fire in her eyes, eyes of a beast in the jungle, Desperate, golden and green, wild as a river in spate? Her long lithe limbs were brown, and she took the world as a leopard, Grave, disdainful and strong, takes of his prey without hate.