2: THE CROCUS
I
On mountains the crocus
Ere hollows be clear
In the bed of the snowdrift
Will rise and appear;
Aloft the pure crocus
Born under the snow
In the sun is left trembling,
All bare to his glow,
Like the heart of the woman who listens to
love in the forests below:
II
“O light-born, how oft
Shall I drink in, like wine,
Thy body cloud-soft,
Earth's marvel, yet mine?
How oft shall I dare,
Unabsolvèd by death,
In the flood of thy hair,
In the flame of thy breath?
From the incense-boat Sun hast thou wandered,
a dream from a time beyond death?”
III
She yearns to respond
To that strain out of reach,
To that glowing and subtle
Stream-spirit of speech.
But she weeps—ah, too childish—
For love is the span
Of the half-bestrung lyre
Of the language of man;
She breathes the sun-song of the crocus,—
reveal it, repeat it, who can!
In the Jura,
June.
