Lascivious eyes 'neath snow-pale sensual brows, Flashing hot, killing lust, and tresses light, Lose, satin streaming, purple as the night, Night when the storm sings and the forest bows.
And then, meseems, along the wild, fierce hills A whisper and a rustle of fleet feet, As if tempestuous troops of Mænads meet To drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.
And once I see large, lustrous limbs revealed, Moth-white and lawny, 'twixt sonorous trees; And then a song, faint as of fairy seas, Lulls all my senses till my eyes are sealed.
With lips that were hoarse with a fury Of foam and of winds that are strewn, Of storm and of turbulent hurry, The ocean roared, heralding soon A birth of miraculous glory, Of madness, affection--the moon.
And soon from her waist with a slipping And shudder and clinging of light, With a loos'ning and pushing and ripping Of the raven-laced bodice of Night, With a silence of feet and a dripping The goddess came, virginal white.
And the air was alive with the twinkle And tumult of silver-shod feet, The hurling of stars, and the sprinkle Of loose, lawny limbs and a sweet Murmur and whisper and tinkle Of beam-weaponed moon spirits fleet.
We stood where the fields were tawny, Where the redolent woodland was warm, And the summer above us, now lawny, Was alive with the pulse winds of storm.
And we watched weak wheat waves lighten, And wince and hiss at each gust, And the turbulent maples whiten, And the lane grow gray with dust.
White flakes from the blossoming cherry, Pink snows of the peaches were blown, And star-fair blooms of the berry And the dogwood's flowers were strewn.
And the luminous hillocks grew sullied, And shadowed and thrilled with alarm, When the body of the blackness was gullied With the rapid, keen flame of the storm.
And the birds to dry coverts had hurried, And the musical rillet ran slow, And the buccaneer bee was worried, And the red lilies swung to and fro.
Till the elf-cuirassiers of the showers Came, bright with slant lances of rain, And charged the bare heads of the flowers, And trampled the grass of the plain.
And the armies of the leaves were shattered, Their standards drenched, heavy and lank; And the iron weed's purple was spattered, And the lily lay broke on the bank.