And I who witness am possessed by awe grown crimson
with desire,
Its iron image wrapped in fire and branded idly on my
breast.
Her face is bronze, her skin is green, as woods and suns
would have it so.
Her secret wonders grow and glow, limned in the luminous
patine.
Worship, the sculptor’s, clean forgot in worship of her
body lithe,
And time forgotten with his scythe, and thought, the
Witenagemot.
Confused in rapture: peace is culled a flower from the
arboreal root,
The vision dulled, the singer mute, shattered the lute,
the song annulled.
41 G