NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree

YOU are as gold as the half—ripe grain that merges to gold again, as white as the white rain that beats through

Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,

Each of us like you has died once, has passed through drift of wood—l… cracked and bent and tortured and unbent

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

I saw the first pear as it fell— the honey—seeking, golden—banded, the yellow swarm was not more fleet than I,

I first tasted under Apollo’s lip… love and love sweetness, I, Evadne; my hair is made of crisp violets or hyacinth which the wind combs b…

I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream),

The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light

O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind

Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…

Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone