LEONARDO TO MONNA LISA

I wish you were a beaker of Venetian glass

That I might fill you with most precious wine

And drink it, breathless — lo! the moments pass

Of that subliminal communion.

I take you from my lips, and crush you — so!—

Into a thousand shining particles;

So, at the last, my passionate greed shall know

That you were wholly mine.

I wish you were a rare, stringed instrument

Beneath my hand, and from you I would wring

Such unimagined music, as was sent

Never before, along the quivering nerves;

Such strange, sharp discords, out of which I'd mould

Music more sweet than the spring nightingale's;

Then, ere the magic of the sound was old,

Would I not rend each string?

Possess you? Ah, not with the world's possession,

You still, strange creature; neither force nor will

Could make you serve a man's mere earthly passion.

I would dissolve you, in one blinding flash,

Into a drop of elemental dew,

And let you trickle down the barren rock

Into the black abyss, if so I knew

That you henceforth were powerless to mock

My spirit with your smile.