Clouds Without Water

VI Sweet, O my sweet, if all the heavenly portion Of nectar were in one blue ocean poured Their fine quintessence were a vile abortion Bitter and flat, foul, stagnant and abhorred Should one compare it with the tiniest tithe Of one soft glance your eyes on me might shed, One gesture of your body limber aiid lithe, One smile — the sudden white, the abiding red! Then — should one slander you in idiot verse By speaking of the subtle seven-fold sweetness Your lips can answer me, all fate to amerce In one mad kiss in all its mad completeness? O Gods and Muses ! give me grace for this To match my wine for sweet with Lola’s kiss. VII AMfine. ’Tis impossible, but so it is. My mouth is Lola’s and my Lola’s mine When in the trance, the death we call a kiss, Earth is done down, and the immanent divine Exists! Impossible! no mortal yet Suffered such bliss from the all-envious gods ; Whence we may guess we are immortal, set From the beginning over the periods Of ages, set on thrones of jasper and pearl, Wreathed with the lilies of Eternity, While on our brows the starry clusters curl Like flashes from the sunkissed jewelry, Dew on the flowers our garlands. Ay! you are mine ’ And mine as you are shall I pour the wine.