INVOCATION

Listen, my lute, I would turn from your militant measures.

Well have you answered the touch of intransigent fingers;

Wildly your strings have vibrated — but have you forgotten

How to make love-songs?

Lute, you are hot to the hand; you are tense and exultant.

Cease crying out — let me rest from the din and the battle.

Life is not only a summoning shout and a struggle,

A blow and a silence.

Is there not vigorous peace after vigorous onslaught?

Beauty's a challenge as fierce and as stirring as conflict...

Look — how she runs through the tremulous twilight to meet me —

Do you remember?

See — it is night and she turns to my arms of a sudden;

Soft as a mother and wild with the fires of April —

Bashful and bold, with her passionate hair all about her;

Lovely and lavish.

Lute, it was she who awoke and impelled us to singing —

Ah, those first lyrics, impulsive and feeble and earnest —

She who aroused us and soothed us — our passion, our pillow —

Dare you forget her!

Only remember‘ tis she keeps me rested and restless;

Only remember my heart, like a fate in strong breezes.

Leaps at the thought of her voice and her slow, searching kisses,

Stabbing and healing.