The Secret Splendour

Names*

"Ayesha" I'll call you when the day resounds

With bold and beautiful things,

 The carmined sea, the tuneful rounds

Of blithe ambitious wings,

And windy hills with green tossed hair,

Maenads drawn ever higher,

As by their side the sun lays bare

His loins of gorgeous fire!

And from the scabbard of calm sleep

My heart shall like a sabre leap

 And flash to you its quivering cry

 Keen with the riotous passion of the sky!

But when the shadowy hours of evening steal

On bold and beautiful things,

And wistful silences reveal

Phantasmal whisperings,

And flowers whom day gave dazzled birth

Sip the dim dew of night And stir the moon-tranced thought of earth

With fairy-winged delight—

When weary grows the wandering breeze,

Lost in a wilderness of trees,

And mists enwreathe the ocean's din,

Then will I plumb your dream-depths with "Yasmin!"

7.6.32

* A poem of 1926 touched up.

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