All the lovely green rushes of the banks are in flames! And a boat full of wounded men is tossing in the moonlight! All the king's daughters are out in a boat in the storm! And the princesses are dying in a field of hemlock! Oh, do not unfasten the windows! Listen--the ocean steamers are still hooting on the horizon! They are poisoning someone in a garden! They are holding a splendid festival in the houses of the enemy! There are deer in a beleaguered city! And a menagerie in a garden of lilies! And the jungle of the tropics in the depths of a coal-mine! A flock of sheep is crossing an iron bridge! And the lambs have come from the meadows and are mournfully entering the ward! Now the Sister of Charity is lighting the lamps; Now she is bringing the patients their supper, She has closed the windows upon the canal, And all the doors to the light of the moon! NIGHT PRAYER Below the somnolence of prayer, Under languid visions I Hear the passions surge and cry: Lust with lust is warring there. Thro' the lassitude of dreams Shines the moon as thro' a mesh; And the wandering joy of flesh Still on pestilent beaches gleams. Under ever-shrouded skies, Thirsting for their starry fires, Thro' my veins I hear desires Toward the green horizon rise. Evil fondnesses I hear Blackly surging through my mind: Phantom marshes vanish blind Sudden on the sky-line drear. O Lord, thy wrath will slay me soon! Have pity on me, Lord, I pray! Sweating and sick, O let me stray Thro' pastures glimmering in the moon! For now, O Lord, the time is nigh To rase the hemlock with the steel, Whose moon my secret hopes reveal Green as a serpent in the sky: And the plague of dreams mine eyes Smites, and all its sins subdue, And the rustling fountains blue Toward the sovereign moon arise! WINTRY DESIRES I mourn the lips of yesterday, Lips whose kisses are yet unborn, And the old desires outworn, Under sorrows hid away. Always rain on the far sky-line; Always snow on the beaches gleams, While by the bolted gate of dreams Crouching wolves in the grasses whine. Into my listless soul I gaze: With clouded eyes I search the past, At all the long-spilt blood aghast Of lambs that died in wintry ways. Only the moon its mournful fires Enkindles, and a desolate light Falls where the autumn frosts are white Over my famishing desires. LISTLESSNESS I sing the pale ballades of eld, Of kisses lost without reward, And lo, on love's luxurious sward, The nuptials of the sick are held. Voices thro' my slumber sound: Listlessly they gather near. Lilies bloom in closes where Star nor sun hath blessed the ground.