The Fountain

My dear, your eyes are weary;

Rest them a little while.

Assume the languid posture

Of pleasure mixed with guile.

Outside the talkative fountain

Continues night and day

Repeating my warm passion

In whatever it has to say.

             The sheer luminous gown

                           The fountain wears

             Where Phoebe’s very own

                           Color appears

             Falls like a summer rain

                           Or shawl of tears.

Thus your soul ignited

By pleasure’s lusts and needs

Sprays into heaven’s reaches

And dreams of fiery deeds.

Then it brims over, dying,

And languorous, apart,

Drains down some slope and enters

The dark well of my heart.

             The sheer luminous gown

                           The fountain wears

             Where Phoebe’s very own

                           Color appears

             Falls like a summer rain

                           Or shawl of tears.

O you, whom night enhances,

How sweet here at your breasts

To hear the eternal sadness

Of water that never rests.

O moon, o singing fountain,

O leaf-thronged night above,

You are the faultless mirrors

Of my sweet, bitter love.

             The sheer luminous gown

                           The fountain wears

             Where Phoebe’s very own

                           Color appears

             Falls like a summer rain

                           Or shawl of tears.