Loneliness I love...

Loneliness I love,

And that is why they have called me forth into the streets.

Loneliness I love,

But the crowd has clutched at me with fawning hands,...

My spirit speaks

In the scented quietness of a divine melancholy

Murmuring the tunes

For which my dreams are the delicate instruments.

The shadowy silences

Have made me beautiful and dressed me in velvet dignities,

And that is why

The noise of tambourines has maddened my soul into dancing,

And I am clad

In the lust-lipped whispering of furtive caresses.

Holiness I love,

And touching the virginal pierced feet of martyrs,

The crucified feet

Nestled among lilies and hallowing candles.

Holiness I love

And the melodious absolution falling on my sins.

But that is why

Blasphemous priests have forced my hands to tear

The vesture of secrecy

Which hides the human nakedness of God.