University of Virginia Library


48

[XVI
Her eyes are spacious as the starlight is]

Her eyes are spacious as the starlight is;
Her brows are clear and pale as porphyry;
Her breasts are hueless as young ivory,
Save where they crimson, wounded by a kiss.
Her beauty wears the mood of Nemesis;
She is aloof from Time and Memory;
Her hands were shaped for love, and utterly
Her lip's deep curve was carved and stained for this.
I will alone, in silence, go to her
And feel beneath my kiss her pulses stir,
And in her hair the perfume of Love's breath;
And she will understand and bear with me
The joy of life, the pain, the mystery;
The thought, the fear, the loneliness of death.