I have not been awake, and again
In a trembling word, I have written.
I have a sweet song, not worthy of you,
If you were true, you could be untrue.
But who is your soul so clear,
Who were you, why would you hear?
O, sweet soul, hath thou but no glory over me,
Such a misery ain’t more mysterious than the sun;
More furious than hells can be,
But who says I shall understand thee
Who says I shall stay dumped,
Who says I shall stay trapped?
Perhaps, upon the death of such winds
T’is sad love is to be made unseen,
For like a battled desire
That ever floats about captivating raided skies,
Such a love never catches the rain,
but dances and falls into the sun.
Perhaps, upon the dying of the night
‘Tis the sun that shall rise,
And like a pictured light that dies
I could not meet you again in the skies,
To hail you back into my arms,
To wound myself, to live the evil past.
For a breeze of morning lights,
The planet of Love is on high,
But have you not, have you seen me?
I am like a lonely star in the rain,
And that bed of daffodil skies,
That clutches my single dose of cries,
Holier that they wanted to be,
But not a faint one to thee.
To dance with the drugged jasmine,
To dance in crowned loneliness.
To be tied to worried heat,
By the mirth of a golden summer,
To laugh, but not in freedom,
To scold the unknowing nights.
To be in love, but not to love,
And to feel, but not to feel,
To feel not a whole, but half
Of my heart has been like a tattered sky
And soundly tears are not even there, no more.
I said to the rose, “The brief noon
Has gone, and so have its hairs.”
I heard no more, and thought ‘twas silly
To question its red poetry,
Whose sighs were those, and
Would thine ever be mine?
For such sworn words are bashful,
They cling to but avert me
Through the obnoxious night and day.
Such vanished worlds existed to me
Back then, in the rolled vine forest
But all hath now gone, scorching
Themselves in everlasting rest.
And whose promise was given to me
For none was like it at the brief night,
Nothing much of a rustling delight
When I had had a young day in wine,
And I had betrayed all in disguise,
Whose love is there now, to catch me wise?
And the soul of your height was in my blood,
And so was your skin, your fleshy touch
As the music of winter rang in the hall,
And long by the petrified garden I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall,
I heard your memories twinkling on my road,
About my asleep, unconscious reveries.
Who would say I had not called your name,
Your name that is the dearest of all.
On the grass your steps are seen so clear
As those perfumes on the street stones,
I have never smelled any so dear,
My love, my sweet, my young heart.
My heart, that hath swollen in t’is heat
My darling, that I have left, but merry meet.
In the meadow then, your love so sweet
In the eerie untouched March wind,
Just like when we had met in November,
By the amber wood brown as your eyes,
The hollow gravel road that followed,
Meeting your gleeful shade tomorrow.
Our slender, our slender winter,
Full of milk, and magnolia trees in white,
You have hunted me again at eerie nights,
Even by the crying lights that have loved me,
A ghastly shadow that shall not leave.
Knowing your promise to me,
The lilies and roses are all awake,
They have sighed for me and melted for thee.
Our taller, our taller moon
Full of yellowness, and glinting green
You have haunted me and my weight of sins,
And made of me what I want not to see,
To apply the sun to my face, and blood
To apply such sins back again to my heart.
There has fallen a splendid star
From the grinning flower at the gate,
He is coming, my dove, my heart,
And the white leaves cries, “He’s late,”
And tells me I should not wait,
To turn around the bush then go,
Leaving his careless face, in the know.
There has gone a sweet universe,
A parting of my lover and verse,
He whose soul was uniquely sweet,
And ever is as, again, I remember,
I remember the days in cold and heat,
I do remember the memories, forever.
He is coming, my love, my sweet,
The air here is no more real,
Were it more than a spacious threat,
I would still hear no more, but hate,
To call out to the unheard name,
To call out to the fallen fall.
He is coming, my blood, my dear,
He is to love, to be back here.
And I am to love, to be again in love,
I have been in love in these four years;
Never have all these been so true,
Never have I heard, but it will be new.
And who says a lot about the tangled rose,
Now that the setting moon is gone,
That I have loved still the mist,
That I have believed in such bliss.
Cursed is the sun, and I believe it sobs
I heard the night sever its hopes.
I said to the Moon, “Gi’ me back my love,”
It told me it was dawn now,
And then dawn approached, I knew,
Turning all ripped anguishes to spring.
I could not sob, I could not sing,
I was not to long for everything.
I said to the Sky, “How gullible you are,”
But he said to me I would still love,
That I would not care, but to write
I would still care for your silent nights,
I would foster away my solitude
And read aloud my sober thoughts.
I said to the Stars, “How far you are,”
But they told me they wanted to write,
That to excite poetry here with me,
And such arts, to them, ne’er sleep;
The Stars are offspring to my lips,
Gasping words at my fingertips.
I said to the Rain, “How tame you are,”
It gave me a clear reason to behold,
For such a shower can be more daunting,
I have none in sight, none to hold.
All the risks I have taken in me,
All those sighs, smiles that I can be.
Hence! Even then I love you still,
And to see your smile, o my darling,
New joys are born, and stirred to life,
Bending towards me, singing,
Climbing their way into my thoughts,
And from the valleys underneath
Overcoming altogether t’ese bitter joys.
Hence! Even then I fancy you,
Speaking to me in shadow and flesh,
Although through a red flushed face,
And all is false, trembling in weird lies.
Coming to me in death’s daily form,
Having you by my side feels warm,
And to cuddle you here, in my arms,
Unlike the other bloodless, friendless nights.
Hence! Even then you live in me,
As you will always continue to be,
With a trickling love ever fresh to me,
With a hollow cheek and faded eye,
Like the chatter that shuns,
A hatred that sleeps while ‘tis awake.
I am lost here, with thoughts I yielded
And the dreams my rose shielded.
Hence! Even then you, a loving sight
Dearer to me than all hushed nights,
With one green sparkle and beyond
You remain as my everlasting song,
To make me write all over the morn
I have loved you still, all along.
