YOUR face to me is like a beautiful city
Dreaming forever by the rough wild sea,
And I the ship upon a wilderness of waves
Heavily laden with memories. . . .
I roam over all the earth
Making rhymes of you, and singing songs,
Because your face will never let me rest,
Because I can not frame it in a star
Surrounded with my cloudy reveries,
Because I may not pluck it like a flower
To breathe the incense of its perfumed soul—
Your face is like the carved hilt of a sword
Whose sheath is in my breast!
Dreaming forever by the rough wild sea,
And I the ship upon a wilderness of waves
Heavily laden with memories. . . .
I roam over all the earth
Making rhymes of you, and singing songs,
Because your face will never let me rest,
Because I can not frame it in a star
Surrounded with my cloudy reveries,
Because I may not pluck it like a flower
To breathe the incense of its perfumed soul—
Your face is like the carved hilt of a sword
Whose sheath is in my breast!
1918