bodies of women and men,
Temples of God ruined; I see the claws
Of sinister Fate, from the reach of whose feline paws
Never are safe the bodies of women and men.

Almighty Cat, it sits on the Throne of the World,
With paw outstretched, grinning at us, the mice,
Who play our trivial games of virtue and vice,
And pray--to That which sits on the Throne of the World!

From our beginning till all is over and done,
Unwitting who watches, pursuing our personal ends,
Hither and thither we scamper....The paw descends;
The paw descends and all is over and done.

Rest

Here is tranquillity and silvan shade;
For now, emerging from that waste of sand
Which was my life, I reach a fruitful glade,
A pool of water in a thirsty land.

Your gentle soul a well of beauty is,
And crystal clear the sunlit deeps thereof;
And from that fountain of unmeasured bliss
I draw the living water of your love.

Here is the goal of all my wandering,
Here is oblivion of my bitterness,
And here the temple where my heart shall sing
Your eyes that light me and your lips that bless.

_The strength, the mellow music, and the laughter_

The steadfast beauty of her eyes is balm,
And in her touch there's healing for my hurt;
She is unshaken as a vessel girt
Mid waters of unutterable calm.

The years grow fragrant with her fragrance: they,
Sipping her sweetness, leave her yet more sweet.
Laden with divers colours, at her feet
They shed their motley silks and go their way

Like withered dreams. So youth must follow after,
Youth that is brief and beauty that is grass;
But from her gentle soul shall never pass
The strength, the mellow music, and the laughter.

Ashes

Bury the ashes. The life, the gleam
Of love is gone: we have killed with kisses
The fragile soul of rapture: this is
Only the hollow husk of a dream,
The bitter waking, the end thereof.
Come, bury the ashes of love.

The music falters; the flame is spent;
The vision is gone, the splendour faded,
Leaving only a pitiful jaded
Half-desire, and a discontent.
The end of love is a weary kiss--
Surely hate were better than this!

_Du bist wie eine Blume_

So like a flower, so gentle,
So fair, so pure thou art,
That musing on thy beauty
Brings sad