DESIRE

I would sing thy face

Sitting here in the firelight;

Mid the senseless noise of guns

Comes it as a flower between the flames.

Sea-blue thine eyes, and bright as hawk's are,

Yet frail thy face as an image in clear water

As a pearl lying there, hidden or plain, when light

Wavers upon it: mobile as thy moods are

Or faint as a star in the mist's milk:

And frail thine hands,

Delicate,

Hovering in infinite slow gesture, nigh speech

Hesitating, poised,

Fragile: they would not mar

Gray bloom on a ripe plum.

I would sing thy face

To forget this....

But thy face sings to me from the slim flames

And my praise is silence, and my prayer.