✶✶✶✶✶
IX
Now then the pressure and the pain increase,
And ever nearer grows the exulting rose
Your face; and like a Malay with his kriss
That runs amok your passion gleams and grows.
It shakes me to the soul: by that you are stilled;
You hold yourself together, like a man
Stabbed to the heart, who, knowing he is killed,
Lets his whole life out in his yataghan,
And strikes one masterstroke. So now you breathe
Close on my face; you strip me of defence;
You sing in obscure words whose crowns enwreathe
My forehead with their viewless violence,
So that I lie, as at the appointed term,
Awaiting the foul kisses of the worm.
And ever nearer grows the exulting rose
Your face; and like a Malay with his kriss
That runs amok your passion gleams and grows.
It shakes me to the soul: by that you are stilled;
You hold yourself together, like a man
Stabbed to the heart, who, knowing he is killed,
Lets his whole life out in his yataghan,
And strikes one masterstroke. So now you breathe
Close on my face; you strip me of defence;
You sing in obscure words whose crowns enwreathe
My forehead with their viewless violence,
So that I lie, as at the appointed term,
Awaiting the foul kisses of the worm.
— 109 —
