.. Alas,
Where is the old content of maidenhood,
The calmness and the laughter and the song,
The patient hands unshaken as the needle
Plied to the gentle rhythm that my lips
Murmured, untroubled girlhood at their brink?
Was that but yesterday?... How long ago,
How the swift moments flow along the flood.
For yesterday was sweet indifference;
These little drooping breasts had never known
This pain that swells them out and makes them ache
For Love to touch them, for the nestling lips
To trouble them as a warm lifting wind
Murmurs between two swelled and ripening grapes
Whispering of future wines of mad delight.
Ah, let me learn of this! A rapture fills
My limbs, and in my womb there stirs a craving
For life ... life! Oh, wonderful, the vision that glows
About me in such radiance, the light, the strife
Of music, hue and perfume of the rose.
Oh garden of desire, where one awaits
My coming with the sudden knowledge glowing
Deep in my eyes, made sombre as the day
Is somber in the summer noon of light.
Now I perceive I am a sacred temple
Long closed about the hidden flame of life,
Closed with white ivories and gliding shapes
Of river waves, and waves upon the sea
Rising and gliding.
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