lived it,
Pour no blood on the ashes, for blood can not turn into dew.

34

It is the same twilight, dear,
The hour of love and tear
When in raiments of shadows
Fancies, fears, hopes, and sorrows
Tread the path of sunset,
While like barks of jet
Float the clouds from east to west.

I think of thee, my darling,
As in my heart strange chords ring
Out melodies of many memories,
And half-forgotten reveries
Telling of this or that scene,
That is and has been
Trod by thee, Queen of queens.

My dreams of thee are ceaseless,
As my love of thee is endless;
Whether it be sunset or sunrise,
Hour of star-song, or bird-cries
It is of thee that I dream,
In the heart of my soul's stream
That flows to thy feet, my darling.

Dark grows both east and west;
Flower-heads droop into rest,
As I seek to lay my heart and loving
On thy star-white breast, my darling,
And sink into that pool of sleep
That rises from thy singing's deep,
While all are silent, as my desires near thee, my Queen.

What peace thy presence breathes!
What serenity weaves its wreathes!
What myriad wonders touch hands
Across many seas, from many lands,
When a thought of thee
Heralds thy coming to me
Between palpitating desires, and fragrant dreams.

35

WEARINESS

Weariness the tune of this evening melody,
Pain the lute to which I sing;
Ah! goddess, why this gray measure
In thy starry harmony?

The white conch[4] of the half-moon
Silent as though all worship's ceased,
No incense-perfume from the forest censer
The breeze brings; all still, like torrid noon.

I row in a black bark on a copper-colored sea,
The sun fades like a golden bubble in its deep;
Weariness the chart that I hold in my hand,
Weariness the tune of this evening melody.

[Footnote 4: In a Hindu temple conch shells are blown during or at the
close of a worship.]

36

A call, not a song;
A command, not a prayer;
No mellowing moonlight, but dawn,
Frail, fanciful, and fair
In the east of my dream and desire.
At the portal of unending desire,
Draped in diaphanous dreams,
With a whispered word of fire
That quivers and gleams
Through the clouds of my longing.
Longings poignant with pains and tears
Enfold, and f