Eclogue

The Faun

I would perpetuate those nymphs.

So clear,

Their light bodies that vault in the air

Dozing in ruffled sleep.

Did I dream that love?

My doubt, a cluster of ancient night, achieves itself

In manifold subtle branches that delay

Even the proven woods, alas! that all alone I offer myself

As a triumph the ideal lack of roses.

Think back...

are the women that you gloss

Figured as a wish of your fabulous sense!

Faun, illusion escapes from those cold blue eyes,

As the watery opening, the most chaste;

But, the other, all sighs, does she compare

To the breeze of a hot day against your skin?

No! in the immobile and tired swoon

Suffocated in warmth the cold morning struggles,

No water murmurs that doesn't pour

In hesitation from my flute to the grove; and the sole wind

Outside quick to exhale from the two pipes before

Dissipating the sound in arid rain,

Is, at the smooth unmoving horizon,

The visible, and serene, artificial breath

Of inspiration, that regains the sky.

O Sicilian shores of a quiet marsh,

That rivaling suns my vanity devastates

Unspoken beneath the flowers of flame, RECOUNT

<< That I was cutting here the hollow reeds

>> Subdued by talent; when, against the glaucous gold of distant

>> Foliage offering its vines to fountains,

>> an animal whiteness undulates in repose:

>> to that slow prelude the pipes began,

>> this flight of swans--no!--naiads--they softly dive...>>

Inert, all burned in the tawny hour

Without mark by what art assembles detail

Excess of hymen desires to get one:

Shakes me with pure fervor

Upright and alone, under a flood of antique light,

Lily! and one of you in innocence.

Other than the gentle nothing of open lips,

The kiss, that all deep treacheries assure,

My chest, inviolate proof, attests the mysterious bite

of solemn teeth;

But, enough! arcana such as these show themselves

Through vast twin rushes played under the azure of a cheek:

Which, turning to themselves the darkness of the cheek,

Dream, in a long solo, that we amused

The beauty around us by false confusions

Between herself and our credulous song.

And it is from that height that love patterns

Evanescent of ordinary song from the back

To the breast pure stream of blind seeing,

One sound, the empty and unvarying line.