How they flare up, like a tinder bonfire
On the plaza of night, our holy convictions!
Before the usurping edict of tenderness

No more so rich are the gifts of the gods.
On the shores of a different river now
Through wide and widening sunset gates

HARALD, THE AGNOSTIC 
ALE-LOVING OLD SHEPHERD
ENEMY OF THE WHISKY-DRINKING

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

In the world of friends, where travel is slower,
What do you do there, in the world of rain?
Who shares the segments of your tangerine?

A day will come, lamenting, I hear,
When bright no longer with thrones, fires, tears,
My eyes which once incandescent ruled

Gulls spiral high above
The porch tiles and my gulf-green, 
Cliff-hanging lawn, with their 

At dawn, in that uncertain time,
As restless as the earth to bear
The new late rain, I walk knee-deep 

Every Sunday they left a circus of dust behind them, 
as they poured out on the turnpike in stately, overcowded 
                                                                                           carriages,

Through the wild herd of horses, the streets of night, I shall be rushing 
Seeking a blossoming alder branch in a black springed sleigh. 
For a bonnet of snow I shall be searching, for the endless mill-wheel noise.