How well I love you, O my clear beloved, Your swooning body, caressing and caressed, In whose depth of joy I almost drown. All is more dear to me, your lips, your arms close-pressed, And your kind bosom whereon my tired head After the rapture you bestow, sinks down Quietly, near your heart to find its rest. I love you still more after love's sharp pain When your goodness still more sure and motherly Brings repose to passion's ardency, And, when desire has cried aloud its will, I hear approach familiar joy again, With steps that almost silence are, it is so still. V Be kind and comforting to us, oh light! And bathe our foreheads now, oh wintry ray! When we two issue forth this afternoon To breathe together the last warmth of day. We loved you formerly with such a pride, With such a love as our two souls could lend, That a supreme and sweet and friendly flame Is due us now that we await the end. You are that which no man may forget, From dawn that smites his arm unconquered To evening when you sleep within his eyes Your strength abolished and your splendour dead. Always for us you were the seen desire Spreading through all, luminous and free, That with impassioned ardour deep and high Seemed from our heart to seek infinity. VI Alas the time of crimson phlox is past And of proud roses brightening the gate. What matter? Still I love with all my heart Our garden, tho' deflow'red and desolate. More dear than are the joyous summer noons, My garden is that now forlornly grieves; Oh the last perfumes languidly exhaled By a late flower in the lingering leaves! This evening I wandered in the paths Over the plants my fervent touch to pass, And falling on my knees I pressed my lips To the wet earth among the trembling grass. And now that it is dying and the night Has misted all the garden with its breath, My being that so dwells in all this ruin Shall learn to die in sharing thus its death. VII The evening falls, the moon is gold.... Before the day is spent Go out and wander in the garden walks And pluck with gentle hands The few remaining flowers that on their stalks Are not yet sadly bent toward the mould. What matter if their foliage be wan? We still admire and love, And still their chalices are beautiful above The stems they rest upon. You wander mid the borders here and there Along a lonely path, And the flowers you bear Tremble in your hand that shudders as it takes. And now your dreamy fingers Reverently shape the sere Roses wherein autumn lingers, Weaving them with many a tear, Into a crown of pale, clear flakes. The last light dwells upon your eyes and brow And your slow steps are sad and quiet now....