A PILGRIMAGE.


Is that your window with the moving shade
In pilgrimage I've come so far to see?
— The air may enter, you are not afraid
Of the «great air» that plays invisibly
About your neck, moving your opened hair
(That busy shadow is perhaps your maid?)
While I must wait, as near as I may be,
Upon the sands, wishing that I were made
Like Ariel to skip accross the sea
Bringing you kisses, in small waves that bear
The prostrate happy sun-flushed evening there,
And all unseen cover you every where:
To rise up with the tide and fall on you
With lips that moisten, cling, and sting like spray —
To want you, and so wanting turn away?
Or beat my way into that prisoned hue:
Now that your window is a golden square
Cut in the darkness? Must I homeward fare
With flapping cape againt the wind to fight,
Or like a sea-gull wing towards your light?

D'une plage lointaine.


— 27 —