EROS ATHANATOS

As a rose bends in rain

Your face is bowed into mine arms,

Spilling its golden drops there:

And the fragrance of wet roses

Is in my nostrils,

And the long bright tendrils of your hair

Upon me.

Under my hand you tremble as a reed

When wind ruffles the water;

Such great joy floweth beneath my fingers,

And the rain passes, and the wind strews

The ripples with crimson petals

Bright as blood upon their polished silver.

But my delight of you

Fragrant and humid in mine arms,

Of a white body convulsive, shaken

With the soul's passion; lips fierce, eager,

Passes not, but as a song, as a breath passes,

To hide it in a silence, a sleep,

Among cherishing dews, being music:

Nor the mere lute, nor the singer,

But the shaped passion of a god

Embodied in us,

Beyond us, eternal, exultant.