Rosa Coeli

Such as strange orchids give, and hyacinths, Among the broken pedestals and plinths Where the gray Lords of Time, of Time forgotten, Lie in the herbage rotten Of the unpeopled forest. V SONG ! O amorous and seducing, I see thee as thou soarest, So that, the girders of the soul unloosing, That Child of you and me, O rose of roses, That Child whose life encloses Our lives, is therefore I, may wander ever By the fritillary-fringéd river, Through lotus gardens of the sleepy gods, On hills where every timid oread tries Blue gentian as disguise From holier (though she think profaner) eyes, On seas where, it may be, (to even the odds !) Each nymph and undine issues from the foam Armed with a pearly mirror and with a coral comb To tire her beauty, lure me to the lakes Of light where strikes the day to hyaline floors Whereon blithe fish and emerald water snakes Play all the day, and all their innocence adores Is some old anchor with its rusty flakes Fallen from God knows what forgotten ship. 6 O