1764

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
  The maddest noise that grows,—
The birds, they make it in the spring,
  At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line—
  That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
  Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
  That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
  Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
  And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
  Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
  As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
  So dangerously near.

'Twas my spring of youth in that lot
That now haunts my mind by that spot
Of which I could not love less -
Wonderful loneliness,
Of the lake's Serenity gown,
With nature circled 'round.

But when Death hath reached its grasp
Upon Serenity's water - poured into his flask,
The sadistic sagacious wind went by
Murmuring the funeral cry -
Then - I finally awake -
To the terrors of Serenity Lake.

Yet I persist that it was not fright!
Simply Death's delight -
Fueled by the Void of Sorrow,
Pierced by Serenity's arrow -
No! - This Love I must define!
The trip to the lake, of thee and thine.

O! - Death's grasp laid in that voracious wave,
Enticing Serenity to be my eternal grave,
Upon that very fatal spot -
Where the two children rot.
For no soul shall ever make,
A Heaven out of Serenity Lake.

Color floods to the spot, dull purple.
The rest of the body is all washed-out,
The color of pearl.

In a pit of a rock
The sea ***** obsessively,
One hollow thw whole sea's pivot.

The size of a fly,
The doom mark
Crawls down the wall.

The heart shuts,
The sea slides back,
The mirrors are sheeted.

Better that every fiber crack
and fury make head,
blood drenching vivid
couch, carpet, floor
and the snake-figured almanac
vouching you are
a million green counties from here,

than to sit mute, twitching so
under prickling stars,
with stare, with curse
blackening the time
goodbyes were said, trains let go,
and I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from
my one kingdom.

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.