Do You Remember Once...

Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces,

The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays

And, leaving far behind bright streets and busy places,

Stood where the Seine flowed down between its quiet quais?

The city's voice was hushed; the placid, lustrous waters

Mirrored the walls across where orange windows burned.

Out of the starry south provoking rumors brought us

Far promise of the spring already northward turned.

And breast drew near to breast, and round its soft desire

My arm uncertain stole and clung there unrepelled.

I thought that nevermore my heart would hover nigher

To the last flower of bliss that Nature's garden held.

There, in your beauty's sweet abandonment to pleasure,

The mute, half-open lips and tender, wondering eyes,

I saw embodied first smile back on me the treasure

Long sought across the seas and back of summer skies.

Dear face, when courted Death shall claim my limbs and find them

Laid in some desert place, alone or where the tides

Of war's tumultuous waves on the wet sands behind them

Leave rifts of gasping life when their red flood subsides,

Out of the past's remote delirious abysses

Shine forth once more as then you shone,— beloved head,

Laid back in ecstasy between our blinding kisses,

Transfigured with the bliss of being so coveted.

And my sick arms will part, and though hot fever sear it,

My mouth will curve again with the old, tender flame.

And darkness will come down, still finding in my spirit

The dream of your brief love, and on my lips your name.