Clear, with Light, Variable Winds The fountain bent and straightened itself In the night wind, Blowing like a flower. It gleamed and glittered, A tall white lily, Under the eye of the golden moon. From a stone seat, Beneath a blossoming lime, The man watched it. And the spray pattered On the dim grass at his feet. The fountain tossed its water, Up and up, like silver marbles. Is that an arm he sees? And for one moment Does he catch the moving curve Of a thigh? The fountain gurgled and splashed, And the man's face was wet. Is it singing that he hears? A song of playing at ball? The moonlight shines on the straight column of water, And through it he sees a woman, Tossing the water-balls. Her breasts point outwards, And the nipples are like buds of peonies. Her flanks ripple as she plays, And the water is not more undulating Than the lines of her body. "Come," she sings, "Poet! Am I not more worth than your day ladies, Covered with awkward stuffs, Unreal, unbeautiful? What do you fear in taking me? Is not the night for poets? I am your dream, Recurrent as water, Gemmed with the moon!" She steps to the edge of the pool And the water runs, rustling, down her sides. She stretches out her arms, And the fountain streams behind her Like an opened veil. * * * * * In the morning the gardeners came to their work. "There is something in the fountain," said one. They shuddered as they laid their dead master On the grass. "I will close his eyes," said the head gardener, "It is uncanny to see a dead man staring at the sun." The Basket I The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The air is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight. See how the roof glitters, like ice! Over there, a slice of yellow cuts into the silver-blue, and beside it stand two geraniums, purple because the light is silver-blue, to-night. See! She is coming, the young woman with the bright hair. She swings a basket as she walks, which she places on the sill, between the geranium stalks. He laughs, and crumples his paper as he leans forward to look. "The Basket Filled with Moonlight", what a title for a book! The bellying clouds swing over the housetops. He has forgotten the woman in the room with the geraniums. He is beating his brain, and in his eardrums hammers his heavy pulse. She sits on the window-sill, with the basket in her lap. And tap! She cracks a nut. And tap! Another. Tap! Tap! Tap! The shells ricochet upon the roof, and get into the gutters, and bounce over the edge and disappear.