Oh canst thou not hear in my heart all its whispering fears...

Oh canst thou not hear in my heart all its whispering fears

Whose wind-like voices

Flutter the leaves of my hope and bow them with tears

While the body rejoices.

Till all the pomp and beauty of day, the Cardinal Sun

Trailing his scarlet vesture

Leaves after light the pale hills sullen and dun,

Turns with a gesture

Colour and glory to smoke that is deathly and grey.

I follow the shadows of sorrow

That press so close to the dancing heels of the day

And darken the morrow.

The world turns pale and cold, for I seem to see

Beyond its golden visor

The leering skull that derides at our lives and me

Being older than life and wiser....

I hear the cry of the world that writhes to the lash of the whip

Beyond the sound of the treetops singing

To the wind's persuasive violins and bells of dews that drip,

Or rush of feathers winging....

Dost thou fear death as I? Ah no, but thy lips are against my cheek

Murmuring tenderly

The perfumed lies stolen from spring that wistfully through the bleak

Windows of frost so slenderly

Steals her little ghost's flute. Thou tellest of things that might be

If life were as kind as a lover,

If we were beloved of the world and the world of we.

Thy white words hover

Dove-like in rose leaf evenings over the nest

Silvering heaven

With rustle of lovers that nestle together for rest.

If I could have given

My tired lips to kisses and my body to sleep and to thee,

Ah then and then only

The dust were as gentleness mingling thy beauty with me

And death were not lonely.