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

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;

From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,

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

Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear—head On the shore? What note shall we pitch? We have a song,

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

Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…

The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,

White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,

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

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