substance, O bright gleam,
Iron or stone, silver or wind, air-cloud
Or dream, my longing is the same for thee!
Within me thought and hands and art and science
Struggle to build together the same temple.
Maternal Rhea treasures in her breast
All marbles: purple, green, and white. I searched
And found them in your care, Taygetus
Snake-like, and Cyclads fair, and Attica.
And now the columns stand a forest speechless
And motionless; and among them, the rhythms
And thoughts move in slow measures constantly.
And in their depths, light-written images
Show Love that leads and Soul that follows him.

* * * * *

The axe and hammer of the priest black-robed
Struck down the holy idols of the temples;
And yet the soul of the ruins perished not!
It climbed the heaven's spaces as a star
Until new sculptured lilies came to life
In master minds, the gardens of the wise.
Thus axe and hammer of the priest black-robed
Broke not the holy idols of the temples!

* * * * *

Sweet child, upon thy tomb a rosebud blossomed;
Is it thy joy or grief? Thy heart or thou?
If mind, remember me! If mouth, speak forth!
"I am the movement of the motionless,
The lightning flushing from the source of nothing!"

* * * * *

Thy cup is foaming with its black strong wine;
Bring to our fountain thy white-foaming cup,
And brighten into red thy black strong wine
With the fresh water of our fountain here.

* * * * *

I have a thought of dew; a heart of flame!
The wine vat boils; the spring flows fresh and cool;
And I did mingle in my chiseled cup
The black strong wine with the sweet water dew.

A hundred years! A hundred years are gone
Of Grecian mornings and of Grecian sunsets!
Make them a coffin wide, O carpenter,
And bury them, the hapless dead, in silence!

* * * * *

A hundred dragons watch a queen black-robed,
A widowed orphan queen in a lone castle;
And they dig up the scattered fragments of
An ancient and exhaustless treasure, once
Her own, and bring them as their gifts to her!
"I need no fragments! May the hour be cursed
And you, dragons, who hold me prisoner!
I dream of her, the living perfect land
Where I was queen! While here, I am a slave!"

* * * * *

Loud-crying birds that fly toward the heights,
White swans, and swans that cut so tenderl