FIRE AND WATER

Flame-Heart, take back your love. Swift, sure

And poignant as the dagger to the mark,

Your will is burning ever; it is pure.

Mine is vague water welling through the dark,

Holding all substances — except the spark.

Picture the pleasure of the meadow stream

When some clear striding naked-footed girl

Cuts swift and straightly as a gleam

Across its bosom ambling and aswirl

With mooning eddies and soft lips acurl;

Such was our meeting — fatefully so brief.

I have no purpose and no power to clutch.

Gleam onward, maiden, to your goal of grief;

And I more sadly flow, remembering much,

Yet doomed to take the form of all I touch.