112 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE SILENCE OF COLUMBINE 
 
I 
HAD I not been told, 
 I could not have believed it !   
To hold and fold and mould 
Your body’s plastic gold !   
So rapturously bold 
 No poet had conceived it ;   
And yet, bright Yniold, 
 I seem to have achieved it !   
 
II 
Nor word was ours, nor sight ;   
 But in the dusk there sported 
Some sprite of light and might 
That pushed our fingers’ flight 
To the same goal, delight, 
 On pinions unsupported. 
One touch—the world went right, 
 Its destiny distorted !   
 
III 
Still no word of this 
 Though now we surely knew 
How miss the abyss of bliss, 
When all the ambergris