As a rose bends in rain
Your face is bowed into mine arms,
Spilling its golden drops there:
And the fragrance of wet roses
Is in my nostrils,
And the long bright tendrils of your hair
Upon me.
Under my hand you tremble as a reed
When wind ruffles the water;
Such great joy floweth beneath my fingers,
And the rain passes, and the wind strews
The ripples with crimson petals
Bright as blood upon their polished silver.
But my delight of you
Fragrant and humid in mine arms,
Of a white body convulsive, shaken
With the soul's passion; lips fierce, eager,
Passes not, but as a song, as a breath passes,
To hide it in a silence, a sleep,
Among cherishing dews, being music:
Nor the mere lute, nor the singer,
But the shaped passion of a god
Embodied in us,
Beyond us, eternal, exultant.