HER VARIETY

Soft as a pale moth flitting in moonshine

I saw thee flutter to the shadowy call

That beckons from the strings of Carneval,

O frail and fragrant image of Columbine:

So, when the spectre of the rose was thine,

A flower wert thou, and last I saw thee fall

In Cleopatra's stormy bacchanal

Flown with the red insurgence of the vine.

O moth, O flower, O maenad, which art thou?

Shadowy, beautiful, or leaping wild

As stormlight over savage Tartar skies?

Such were my ancient questionings; but now

I know that you are nothing but a child

With a red flower's mouth and hazel eyes.