FROM the fathomless depth of my boredom, from the last room of its emptiness, an elf has come to play with me.
As comes a little gold spider to a prison cell teasing the criminal from his darkness to tear at a thread of sunlight, and kiss the mouth of a shy morning whispering through the window.
An elf has come to dance with me, blown like a leaf on the path of my autumn lassitude.
Sprightly one, dervish! You are the living adventure born of my dead childhood, you are the small god in the temples of my unbelief, you are the bird that nests in ruined temples, laying your silver eggs by moonlight and singing when the pagan birds are still.
You are the dream-sower in the fields of sleep, you have jingled the star-bells on the hood of darkness, and from the knarled, stark tree of time have flung me the apple of eternal laughter.
As comes a little gold spider to a prison cell teasing the criminal from his darkness to tear at a thread of sunlight, and kiss the mouth of a shy morning whispering through the window.
An elf has come to dance with me, blown like a leaf on the path of my autumn lassitude.
Sprightly one, dervish! You are the living adventure born of my dead childhood, you are the small god in the temples of my unbelief, you are the bird that nests in ruined temples, laying your silver eggs by moonlight and singing when the pagan birds are still.
You are the dream-sower in the fields of sleep, you have jingled the star-bells on the hood of darkness, and from the knarled, stark tree of time have flung me the apple of eternal laughter.
1919