“I HAVE seen you, O king of the dead, More beautiful than sunlight.
Your kiss is like quicksilver; But I turned my face aside Lest you should touch my lips.
In the field with the flowers You stood darkly.
My knees trembled, and I knew That no other joy would be like this.
But the warm field, and the sunlight, And the few years of my girlhood Came before me, and I cried, Not yet! Not yet, O dark lover!
You were patient. —I know you will come again.
I have seen you, O king of the dead, More beautiful than sunlight.
II Here in the desert, under the cottonwoods That keep up a monotonous wind-murmur of leaves, I can hear the water dripping Through the canals in Venice From the oar of the gondola Hugging the old palaces, Beautiful old houses Sinking quietly into decay…..
O sunlight—how many things you gild With your eternal gold! Sunlight—and night—are everlasting.
III Once every twenty-four hours Earth has a moment of indecision: Shall I go on?— Shall I keep turning?— Is it worth while? Everything holds its breath. The trees huddle anxiously On the edge of the arroyo, And then, with a tremendous heave, Earth shoves the hours on towards dawn.
IV Four o’clock in the afternoon. A stream of money is flowing down Fifth Avenue.
They speak of the fascination of New York Climbing aboard motor-busses to look down on the endless play From the Bay to the Bronx. But it is forever the same: There is no life there.
Watching a cloud on the desert, Endlessly watching small insects crawling in and out of the shadow of a cactus, A herd-boy on the horizon driving goats, Uninterrupted sky and blown sand: Space—volume—silence— Nothing but life on the desert, Intense life.
V The hill cedars and piñons Point upward like flames, Like smoke they are drawn upward From the face of the mountains. Over the sunbaked slopes, Patches of sun-dried adobes straggle; Willows along the acequias in the valley Give cool streams of green; Beyond, on the bare hillsides, Yellow and red gashes and bleached white paths Give foothold to the burros, To the black-shawled Mexican girls Who go for water.”