Behold! At the idyllic face of eternal beauty
attend—my passion measured on divine scale.
In my hand I grip my flower\'s thorns,
like planets hold to the light of their sun —
let the heaven weigh this want of mine,
for it is both infinite and a single grain:
bring the flower out of its dormant bud.
Of a perpetual cause here I bestow
upon my swift Muse stately redress,
with yearning voice and ceaseless love:
this hymnal splendor of her spectrum.
To crimson the maple trees: their color switch,
upon fall’s reign forfeit all temporal gain,
to nourish the tree till springtime comes,
and I have learned the ballad of this strife,
having drunk deep from their wisdom’s cup.
Shimmering art where beauty posed and time
connects all truthful dots, drawn upon the night sky;
light, the visible part of the fiery passion’s force.
As a savored fruit with a smarting taste,
comes a dream to these ardent orbs;
that floating on Hadean water and ice,
swoons a crimson blossom of pomegranate.
Of stars all seek one perfect union,
the brighter light is the greater pull;
as fierce passion’s great gravity calls
the child’s sharpness and perfect form.
Splendid art of flickering soul
incandescent—lucid as the glaring truth.
How perplexing is this hermit tale,
who saw the breeze, murmuring charges,
bearing the flowers’ arrows, attack
the bees in their fortress, honeycombs;
saw the scarlet lava and its glamour,
midst the waters of molten shore;
heard the aching heart and sizzling words
bedewing the arid, dormant love —
when the solitary ones death encircles
announcing: all lovelorn ones call me friend.
All masters in knowledge of love, self-proclaimed,
yet few discern what love in form perfects;
love and perfection coiling in passion’s forge,
artless who deem their bond but mere chance.
What marks the hunt but flesh and blood?
Yet before the prey, intending archer starves;
who guards the bud through harsh winter’s cold,
then casts it down before its petals part!
Like breasts warm, bristle to blown breath,
the mountains’ pines, attend a tender wind.
O love, once impressed upon eternity’s gate,
that death is far gentler than indifference;
in twilight’s hush, the flower’s lust embraced,
by a hummingbird no longer athirst? No.
To reach eternity at the sun’s temple
love is passing in the chariot of time;
as stars peek shyly from their veil
betwixt a bee and a flowering bud.
Love’s wayward seeds in soul’s prairie sown,
pain be the calyx of their exalted blooms;
if the flower’s thorns deny a loving touch —
for mirror is the galley slave of its masters’ will,
that renders the portrait they so desire —
so the blade of fate lacerates the heart
of one who holds upon its double edge.
As the past is fixed in the future sure change;
love upon the gallows of silence hung —
reproof deals far less deadly wounds
than pride buries the truth in deluded tombs;
for kohl of decay accents all orbs of life,
and hate awaits the lover’s conscience call.
I paint with light in passage and in verse,
what time itself cannot outpace nor claim.
She joins the cloud to water and to earth
and bears their issue, quiet-falling rain.
Her breath is wind, light is her keeping law;
each raindrop bears her mark, dispersed yet whole,
her spectrum freed through air no eye commands.
Before the cosmos learned the lover’s urge,
her measure stood—but perfect, bright.
Then, let all who hear to this cadence dance,
to the child, sing in rapture with fervent tongue:
from the fire we see the flowing souls
that inhabit the earth’s and water’s forms,
and the wind that irritates the ocean\'s tide;
all must hail the one who waits
in the furnace, the passion’s sport,
of loving stars to be solemn conjoined.
O beauty written in all passions’ book,
even as love bends a secluded sage,
scorn comes unto all loving things,
yet could plant the seed of fondness;
vanity sure severs its springing stem:
that who cares for some thorny shoots,
by spring shall get the blossom’s scent,
and conserves its perfume, in artful fame:
remembered in death, if love labor’s lost!
Then I concluding ask in this regard:
is the three-petaled one still full of ire?
Ah, then, so I seal with magic bled,
a feather balances my soul
on eternity’s scale of equilibrium.
Glimmering span where longing lies,
upon the vault of night, stars convene;
my hands clutch the cold flame,
mountains clasp the sky, in silent prayer —
as I consecrate my fiery passion.
What is love but pure madness,
that brings reverent honor unto demise.
Whose mind charges with brittle stick
to battle passion’s consuming flame,
shall tremble helpless before her wings;
who truly loves must part from reason,
or else butcher love’s lawless law!
O fleeting body, O eternal spark,
stand before the altar of fleeting hours,
with verse arranged and devotion’s grace,
for even its course the cosmos bends
to honor the ardor of one perfect love.
For one who had his reason lost,
what purpose serves holding silence?
The hermit’s restraint people mistook
for a conscious choice out of disdain,
or judged his nature merely passive.
By the gate he stands, turned still with dread,
beside him lies a desire killed,
and the bee\'s full quiver of arrows,
the potent honey torments his thought;
must he who recoiled from the claim of kin
be held a slayer of the life denied?