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

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

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

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

Can we believe—by an effort comfort our hearts: it is not waste all this, not placed here in disgust, street after street,

Thou art come at length More beautiful Than any cool god In a chamber under Lycia’s far coast,

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),

Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,

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

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

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

So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the l… above the earth, I who could have slept among the l… at last;