To mine own self I am a wilderness. You know it, amethyst gardens numberless Enfolded in the flaming, subtle deep, Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy sleep Has cherished ancient brightness like a dream, Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have their gleam Of icy and melodious radiance, you, Metals, which into my young tresses drew A fatal splendour and their manifold grace! Thou, woman, born into these evil days Disastrous to the cavern sibylline, Who speakest, prophesying not of one divine, But of a mortal, if from that close sheath, My robes, rustle the wild enchanted breath In the white quiver of my nakedness, In the warm air of summer, O prophetess, (And woman's body obeys that ancient claim) Behold me in my shivering starry shame, I die! The horror of my virginity Delights me, and I would envelop me In the terror of my tresses, that, by night, Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white And glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire, Thou that art chaste and diest of desire, White night of ice and of the cruel snow! Eternal sister, my lone sister, lo My dreams uplifted before thee! now, apart, So rare a crystal is my dreaming heart, I live in a monotonous land alone, And all about me lives but in mine own Image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride, Mirroring this Hérodiade diamond-eyed. I am indeed alone, O charm and curse! Nurse. O lady, would you die then? Herodiade. No, poor nurse; Be calm, and leave me; prithee, pardon me, But, ere thou go, close to the casement; see How the seraphical blue in the dim glass smiles, But I abhor the blue of the sky! Yet miles On miles of rocking waves! Know'st not a land Where, in the pestilent sky, men see the hand Of Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves? Thither I go. Light thou the wax that grieves In the swift flame, and sheds an alien tear Over the vain gold; wilt not say in mere Childishness? Nurse. Now? Herodiade. Farewell. You lie, O flower Of these chill lips! I wait the unknown hour, Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme, Utter the lamentation of the dream Of childhood seeing fall apart in sighs The icy chaplet of its reveries. II. SIGH My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves, And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes, Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue! Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew, When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinité, And agonising leaves upon the waters white, Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun. III. SEA-WIND