She
I know a Lady: stark silence
and bitter weariness of speech
live in the secret twinkling
of her dilated eye-pupils.
Her soul is eagerly open only
to the brass music of Poesy,
deaf and contemptuous to the lowly
joys of the world down there.
Her footsteps are strangely smooth,
unhurried, almost inaudible.
One would not call her a beauty,
and yet, in her lies all my happiness.
When I thirst for daring courage,
when I am proud and bold, I come to her
to learn the delightful wisdom of pain
in her blissful delirium.
Lucid is she in the hours of darkness.
She holds lightning-rods in her hand.
And her dreams are crisp, like shadows
on the fiery sands of paradise.