Some flame-red salamander pirouetting among the dead waste ashes of time—
And I knew that he had found only the secrets of sleep. . . .
***
A woman sat within a little house,
Scolding and singing ballads to her child,
And all around came the quarrel of children's voices.
Yet one boy sat apart within the furthest corner of the room
Painting an animal with coloured chalks.
I lingered by the fire thinking of life, its vanities and mysteries,
But the woman did not heed me,
Nor her pale son that sat so hunched and still,
Painting his visions with the broken chalks,
For they had discovered the absorbing painful secrets of giving birth. . . .
***
It was evening as I wandered,
By a lake two lovers leaned, smiling to see their faces in the water,
For they had found within each other's souls
An argent flattering mirror wherein to gaze and see their faces change with all the moods and shadows of the day....
Not here should I discover the answer to bring light into my darkness,
Into the dim psychic crystals of my soul opalled with the changing colours of unrest—
So I went away into the loneliness, asking the forests and the mountains and the sea
The knowledge of life's baffling mysteries.
But they were roaring in a wind of memories,
Gathering the rain into their bodies to make them fierce and strong,
Heaving their shoulders upward to the morning,
Crowning their foreheads with sunlight.
And I knew that he had found only the secrets of sleep. . . .
***
A woman sat within a little house,
Scolding and singing ballads to her child,
And all around came the quarrel of children's voices.
Yet one boy sat apart within the furthest corner of the room
Painting an animal with coloured chalks.
I lingered by the fire thinking of life, its vanities and mysteries,
But the woman did not heed me,
Nor her pale son that sat so hunched and still,
Painting his visions with the broken chalks,
For they had discovered the absorbing painful secrets of giving birth. . . .
***
It was evening as I wandered,
By a lake two lovers leaned, smiling to see their faces in the water,
For they had found within each other's souls
An argent flattering mirror wherein to gaze and see their faces change with all the moods and shadows of the day....
Not here should I discover the answer to bring light into my darkness,
Into the dim psychic crystals of my soul opalled with the changing colours of unrest—
So I went away into the loneliness, asking the forests and the mountains and the sea
The knowledge of life's baffling mysteries.
But they were roaring in a wind of memories,
Gathering the rain into their bodies to make them fierce and strong,
Heaving their shoulders upward to the morning,
Crowning their foreheads with sunlight.
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