Poems

Front matter

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Contents

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Introduction vii

Dedication xvii

Dedication

A Swimmer's Dream

A Nympholept

The Palace of Pan .....

II

Her great curled hair makes luminous Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin=

Shall she not have the hearts of us To shatter, and the loves therein

To shed between her fingers thus?

Ill

Small ruined broken strays of light,

Pearl after pearl she shreds them through

Her long sweet sleepy fingers, white As any pearl's heart veined with blue,

And soft as dew on a soft night.

IV As if the very eyes of love

Shone through her shutting lids, and stole

The slow looks of a snake or dove;

As if her lips absorbed the whole Of love, her soul the soul thereof.

Lost, all the lordly pearls that were

Wrung from the sea's heart, from the green

Coasts of the Indian gulf-river; Lost, all the loves of the world — so keen

Towards this queen for love of her.

VI You see against her throat the small

Sharp glittering shadows of them shake;

And through her hair the imperial Curled likeness of the river snake.

Whose bite shall make an end of all.

VII

Through the scales sheathing him like wings. Through hieroglyphs of gold and gem,

The strong sense of her beauty stings. Like a keen pulse of love in them,

A running flame through all his rings.