ling hills
where the mists clung like garments.

I was the sadness that came out of the languid rain
and the soft dove-tinted hills
and choked you with the harsh embrace of a lover
so that you almost sobbed.

_Siete Picos_

XXIV

When they sang as they marched in step
on the long path that wound to the valley
I followed lonely in silence.

When they sat and laughed by the hearth
where our damp clothes steamed in the flare
of the noisy prancing flames
I sat still in the shadow
for their language was strange to me.

But when as they slept I sat
and watched by the door of the cabin
I was not lonely
for they lay with quiet faces
stroked by the friendly tongues
of the silent firelight
and outside the white stars swarmed
like gnats about a lamp in autumn
an intelligible song.

_Cercedilla_

XXV

I lie among green rocks
on the thyme-scented mountain.
The thistledown clouds and the sky
grey-white and grey-violet
are mirrored in your dark eyes
as in the changing pools of the mountain.

I have made for your head
a wreath of livid crocuses.
How strange they are the wan lilac crocuses
against your dark smooth skin
in the intense black of your wind-towseled hair.

Sleet from the high snowfields
snaps a lash down the mountain
bruising the withered petals
of the last crocuses.

I am alone in the swirling mist
beside the frozen pools of the mountain.

_La Maliciosa_

XXVI

Infinities away already
are your very slender body
and the tremendous dark of your eyes
where once beyond the laughingness of childhood,
came a breath of jessamine prophetic of summer,
a sudden flutter of yellow butterflies
above dark pools.

Shall I take down my books
and weave from that glance a romance
and build tinsel thrones for you
out of old poets' fancies?

Shall I fashion a temple about you
where to burn out my life like frankincense
till you tower dark behind the sultry veil
huge as Isis?

Or shall I go back to childhood
remembering butterflies in sunny fields
to cower with you when the chilling shadow fleets
across the friendly sun?

_