En Sourdine

Clark Ashton Smith

(From Paul Verlaine)

Calm within the twilight woven
By the lofty boughs above,
Let us with the deep unproven
Silence blend our proven love.

Heart and spirit, molten, waning,
Senses faint with ecstasy,
Mix them with dim languors raining
From the pine and arbute-tree.

Hold thy lids but half apart,
On thy breast thine arms entwine,
Chase from out thy drowsing heart
All desire and all design.

Let us lend our being wholly
To the cradling breeze that passes,
Wrinkling at our feet the lowly
Ocean of long russet grasses.

And when falls on solemn air
From black oaks the evening,
Voice of our unvoiced despair,
There the nightingale shall sing.

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