Because love hungered in earth, in clay, and in the flowers in trees,
in the clustered blossoms of air
and the wavering pallor of sky and seas,
what should I do when such clear,
quiet themes, battered and bitten by rust and skein, grow
as mute as the cold horse-dung?
Is this not where my miserable dreams
***** out each snow-candle and cut each tongue?

Why do you laugh so (restless and calm) when I,
from the spluttering, red-crested downs
and infernal pother of fire-sparks to the sky,
would wail and wallow in grief? Why
have you woken, small breasted, laughing
beside me, calling me fool and madman,
puritan prater? You –
whom my hot lust burns to consume and chew!