So friends that are free and disembodied
Bathed in the shivered wreath of stars;
You who were but men who laughed,
And laughing living through short years
Have now become the voices of the night
The whispers heard before the dawn
Shaking the pendant slumbers of the trees,
Oh the last apparent thrust that brings
A poet’s measure to the wing of truth
—
Oh friends that are so free and have your home
In linked regions of the great invisibles,
Perhaps you lived too short a while, too deep
To langour in the timeless arms of your celestial sleep
Bathed in the shivered wreath of stars;
You who were but men who laughed,
And laughing living through short years
Have now become the voices of the night
The whispers heard before the dawn
Shaking the pendant slumbers of the trees,
Oh the last apparent thrust that brings
A poet’s measure to the wing of truth
—
Oh friends that are so free and have your home
In linked regions of the great invisibles,
Perhaps you lived too short a while, too deep
To langour in the timeless arms of your celestial sleep
Wartime Dance Halls Nov ’44 (a fragment)
A hall where shadows are weary
Of the limped passes of love
And heat curled veneer
Of passion hearing sofas,
Whose lovers prematurely old and weary
Stupefy the ancient virgin fear
With limped passes of love
Carmine lips and the taint of lucid eyes
“may I have the pleasure?”
There are winds in quiet skies;
Your hair might be a faded treasure
A distaff of lovely feminine lies