Evening: the Taj Mahal

Beloved!...

India and you

Breathe through my soul tonight,

You in your gown, impossibly white —

I marvel greatly that it fail

To glow and pale

With iridescent light —

How can it hang in silent nun-like folds?

Think of the flaming mystery it holds,

You... You...

We stand in that wide place

Where love is frozen in marble, spire on spire,

A snow-white nightingale with a heart of fire

Soaring in space.

We gaze, together, into the shining pool

To catch the soul of beauty unaware

Finding only the peaceful body there

Of beauty drowned and still in waters cool.

Burning so luminously in these pure white things

Somehow akin, are palpitating fires,

Intangible, yet visible as spires

Or wings.

And close at hand, an unseen Moslem sings

Blind, haunting chants, which speak

Of mystery, forevermore unguessed.

O shining ones, I seek

No farther, for my soul, content,

Divines the secret of the Taj Mahal and you —

Beauty and desire, possessed

In white tranquillity, in flaming peace,

Find rest.