Afternoon

Ii

Roses of June, you the most fair, You with your hearts transpierced by sun; Violent, tranquil roses, with the air Of halted flights of birds upon a bough; Roses of June and July, straight and new-begun, Mouths whose kisses all at once are thrilled With the wind or with it stilled, Caressing with shade and gold the moving green; Roses mutely ardent and sweet willed, Voluptuous roses in your sheaths of moss, You who pass the long summer time Loving each other In this clarity sublime; Fresh, magnificent, vivid--like you, oh roses, Is our multitudinous desire That in lassitude or leaping fire Loves, exalts, and then reposes!

Iii

If other flowers decorate our home, And multiply the splendour of this place, The little lake shines ever from the grass With the large eyes of its ever moving face.

Ah, say, from what deep distances unknown So many gleaming birds have come With wings sun-sown?

July has driven April from the close And bluish tints have given place to red, The skies are torpid and the wind has fled; Joyously brilliant insects fill the air That harks, And summer wanders by, robed with diamonds And sparks.

Purity, delicate and fair, Beautifies the hour that brings Crystal brilliance to the air; We hear the sounds of water and the brush of wings.

Oh! how your eyes are beauteous at this hour When our silver lake is gleaming in the sight Of the day arising; Your forehead radiant and your heart-beat light. Intensity of life, its goodness and its power, Like to a mighty blessedness Of your soul are part, So that to contain the anguish and the stress, Suddenly your hands have clasped my own, Laying them, as though with fear, Against your heart.

V

I bring you, this eve, an offering of joy From having drenched my body in the gold And silken texture of the joyous wind And in the yellow splendour of the sun; My feet are pure with having walked the grass, My hands are sweet with the dim hearts of flowers, My eyes are brilliant with the sudden tears Born in an instant from the sight of such A beauteous earth and its eternal night.

Space, with arms of burning clarity, Drunk and fervent, sobbing, led me on, And I have gone down there--I know not where-- Where all my captive cries did free my steps; I bring you life and beauty of the plains; Take from me their free and bounteous breath; Storms have laid caresses on my hands, And air and light and perfume are in me.

Vi

Come, let us rest a while beside the path, Upon the aged bench long stained with mould, And let me leave, between your two sure hands, My hand, abandoned to your gentle hold.

And as my hand that lies upon your knees Is glad to be abandoned there and knows Contentment, so my sweet and fervent heart Between your gentle hands has found repose.

And there is joy intense and love profound Of which we do partake together now, Nor trembles on our lips a single word Too strong, nor any kiss that burns your brow.

We would prolong the ardour of this silence, Of mute desires the immobility, Save that, when they quiver of a sudden, I press your pensive hands unknowingly--

Your hands wherein my happiness is sealed-- Your hands which never would attempt to reach To all these sacred and profounder things Whereby we live without the need of speech.

Vii

Sweetly and more sweetly still Cradle in your arms my head, My fevered eyes and forehead wearied; Sweetly and more sweetly still Kiss my lips and say Words made sweeter at each break of day When uttered by your voice: That you are given to me and that I love you still.

The day has broken dull and sad; my sleep Was swept with sombre dreams; The rain lets down its dusky hair in streams, And skies are lost in dreary clouds that weep.

Sweetly and more sweetly still Cradle in your arms my head, My fevered eyes and forehead wearied; You are to me the gracious morn Whose caress is in your hand: Behold, I am reborn, With no evil or dismay, Unto the daily work which marks my way, --A sign That makes me live in an heroic strife, A sword of beauty and of power divine Against invidious life.

There are some days so filled with reassuring peace, Hours of the radiant summer with silence made so fair, I sometimes bring to stillness the balancing of time Within the great oak clock that stands close by the stair.

Then is the hour, the day, the night so part of us That happiness which breathes upon us hears no thing Except the ardent throbbing of your heart and mine When quick embraces heart to yearning heart do bring.

Ix

My pleasant work by open windows wide, With shadow of green leafage from out-side And path of the sun's light Across my paper white, Maintains a gentle violence, A sense Of silence in our kindly, pensive house.

Vividly the flowers lean, And glowing fruits among the boughs are seen, Birds on boughs and birds upon the wing Chant and sing In order that my verse may ring Clear and new, pure and trues As song of birds, And gold of fruits and petals blossoming.

Down in the garden there I see you pass, Over the sunny and the shady grass; But you do not look at me, Lest you trouble my tranquillity, As here with jealous heart I fashion Poems of a frank and tender passion.

X

All faith lies at the bottom of our love, Joining an ardent thought to everything: The faint awakening blossom, or above Downward the drift of petals from a rose; The flight of bird on dark or sun-lit wing; A nest half-falling from a roof that knows Much of the wind's harsh manner--here is scope-- And in the flowery heart where insects cling, For fear, and all of hope.

What matters it if reason with its snows Falls chilling on such poignant ecstasy? Let us accept it with a mind that knows No false, no true, no evil and no good That it may hold prophetically; Let us be happy with our childish eyes, Be it an evil or triumphant power; And let us hide from men who are too wise.

Xi

Dawn, shadow, evening, space and stars; what night Hides in its veils or shows forth mistily, Add to their exaltation; they who live In love, live also in eternity.

No need that reason light its beacon fires On walls that rear them high above the ground, Kindling the docks, the harbour and the sea; For they beyond all ocean's paths are bound.

They see the light of dawns touch shore on shore, Beyond and far beyond the black sea's space; For certitude and trembling hope themselves, Meeting their ardent gaze, have the same face.

Joyous and limpid is their hungry faith; Their soul is the profound and sudden light Which burns for them on high and heavenly things; To know the world, within they turn their sight.

They go by distant paths and live with truths That bound the far horizon of their eyes, Simple and naked, deep, and sweet as dawn; For them alone are songs of paradise.

Xii

It is the pleasant hour when lamps are lit; Calmness and consolation over all; The silences so deep that one could hear A feather fall.

It is the hour when the belovèd comes, Like to the sweetly soft and low Wandering mist upon the breeze, Sweetly slow. She speaks no word at first--and yet I hark, Hark to the soul of her, surprise Its gleam and dark, And then I kiss her eyes.

It is the pleasant hour when lamps are lit, The vow To love each other through the live-long day From depths of heart made luminous by it. Is with us now.

And then we speak of simple things; The fruit we gathered in the close, The flowers that disclose, Between the verdant mosses thick, Their almost wings;

And thought does blossom forth once more At memory of a word so fair Hid in a just remembered drawer, In a letter of last year.

Xiii

Dead kisses of the long dead years Have left their mark upon your face, Beneath the sad, harsh winds of age Of many roses now there is no trace.

I see not now your mouth and eyes Gleam, like the birth of morning fair, Nor softly now your head repose Within the dark deep garden of your hair.