Opals (Custance)/The White Statue

by Olive Custance

The White Statue

 

I love you, silent statue! for your sake
My songs in prayer upreach
Frail hands of flame-like speech
That some mauve-silver twilight you may wake!

I love you more than swallows love the south,
As sunflowers turn and turn
Towards the sun, I yearn
To press warm lips against your cold white mouth!

I love you more than scarlet skirted dawn,
At sight of whose spread wings
The great world wakes and sings;
Forgetful of the long, vague dark withdrawn.

I love you most at purple sunsetting:
When night with feverish eyes
Comes up the fading skies,
I love you with a passion past forgetting.