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THE EQUINOX
IX
Laughing eyes and clear brown skin,
And dark locks rippling wide,
Where the sunbeams play and the eddies spin
I saw my face in the tide,
But I knew the trick Narcissus had done,
So I shook back my hair to stare at the sun ;
My slim brown body I’d keep within
The shade of the green hillside.
x
I found the groves of Pan; I came
At length to a daisied field,
And the sun shone out with his yellow flame
That makes the harvest yield.
Yellow and purple are corn and grape,
But scarlet the god when he takes his shape
At the sound of the awful hidden name
In earth’s eclipse revealed.
XI
And as he clasped me, slim and slight,
I roared with the pain he gave,
And he cried, “I will hold thee here all night,
My beautiful, dark-haired slave ;
Kiss my lips and laugh in my eyes,
And I'll bring magic out of the skies,
And thy flame shall yield to my eyes’ fierce light
Ere thine ashes are laid in the grave!”