From salty lakes the noon-tides approached; the vault of the sky with its gleaming
On all that had died, the knell of their summer-days was sounding;
Their shimmering pinions o'er all the sky to the zenith streaming
Above us were bounding.
Whither their shadows tool: refuge the eyes were in weariness closed,
The blood like the shaft of a furnace its glitter o'er purest of visions did throw
A torturing heat in the midst of eternity's rapture,
The heavenly city aglow.
Blossoms I saw, and their chalices blooming towards the sun they did hold,
Like maidens their lamps, poured full with oils of gold;
And in the lamps the fires flickered, grew dark and aflame in the wind,
On the secret path of pleasure entwined.
Tell unto me, O my soul, whither thy mornings have roamed,
And whither have flown thy noon-tide hours,
And faded away like the richness of flowers?
My mornings before me their blossoms have laid,
In roses that never can fade;
To their nest in the sun have flown my noon-tide hours,
With the sun they have gone to rest,
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