Because of this Modest Style

It's how she spreads, without a sound, her scent

of orange blossom on the dark of me,

it is the way she shrouds in mourning black   

her mother-of-pearl and ivory, the way

she wears the lace ruff at her throat, and how

she turns her face, quite voiceless, self-possessed,   

because she takes the language straight to heart,   

is thrifty with the words she speaks.

                                                                                                 It's how   

she is so reticent yet welcoming

when she comes out to face my panegyrics,

the way she says my name

mocking and mimicking, makes gentle fun,

yet she's aware that my unspoken drama

is really of the heart, though a little silly;

it's how, when night is deep and at its darkest,

we linger after dinner, vaguely talking

and her laughing smile grows fainter and then falls

gently on the tablecloth; it's the teasing way

she won't give me her arm and then allows

deep feeling to come with us when we walk out,

promenading on the hot colonial boulevard. . .

Because of this, your sighing, modest style

of love, I worship you, my faithful star

who like to cloud yourself about in mourning,

generous, hidden blossom; kindly

mellowness who have presided over   

my thirty years with the self-denying singleness   

a vase has, whose half-blown roses wreathe with scent

the headboard of a convalescent man;

cautious nurse, shy

serving maid, dear friend who trembles

with the trembling of a child when you revise

the reading that we share; apprehensive, always timid

guest at the feast I give; my ally,

humble dove that coos when it is morning

in a minor key, a key that's wholly yours.

May you be blessed, modest, magnificent;

you have possessed the highest summit of my heart,

you who are at once the artist   

of lowly and most lofty things, who bear in your hands

my life as if it was your work of art!

O star and orange blossom, may you dwindle

gently rocked in an unwedded peace,

and may you fade out like a morning star

which the lightening greenness of a meadow darkens

or like a flower that finds transfiguration

on the blue west, as it might on a simple bed.