Hold back thy lips, I pray;
Just let me rest this way;
My soul is in the spray
Arising from the silvery cascades murmuring farewell to the day.
Thy kisses ’neath a sigh
Of mine extinguished lie;
O friend, I choke, I die:
Pray, let me raise my head to see the parting light, the vivid sky,
If every kiss of thine
Is safely kept with mine
For one for whom I pine,
Wouldst thou, contented with the taking, call my love a love divine?
Ay, and for every tear
Thou sheddest when I’m near
I shed a score to hear
Her echo my desire’s sigh, albeit she is not thy peer.
If I were but a reed,
Or but a fern or weed,
This would not be my creed;
But prick thou these cold slips and all the roots of me in heaven will bleed.
Thy burning breath is creeping
All over me; ’t is leaping
Into my bones and sweeping
Their ashes out, up and into mine eyes, alas! the awful reaping.
No longer do I fear,
Nor see, nor feel, nor hear;
No longer am I near;
If thou wilt quench thy flame, kiss now the lips that were to thee so dear.
As well kiss thou the grass
On which I lay, alas!
Like me, thou too wilt pass;
One kiss will turn thy lips to ashes and one tear, thine eyes to glass.
Beneath this hemlock tree
A clod I leave to thee;
But over land and sea
My soul is rising, rising, rising, searching for the gods that be.
But gods have lived, and lied,
And loved, and fell, and died;
And like me too they cried
For mercy at the snow white feet of Beauty’s daughter, Beauty’s bride.
And when from Beauty’s spell
Her soul is free, she’ll dwell
In mine, the storm to quell;
In mine she’ll rise to realms of bliss, or swiftly whirl into the deepest hell.