Ah! Could I kiss you now, and lose myself

In the flood of your dark singing mystery–

Primeval, death-deep tide!

Could I kiss you on the mouth, and my thrilled soul

Peer into the immensity of your immeasurable being!

Could I, in the sea-soft touch of your lips, find

The meaning of things–beyond, beyond the senses!

But I cannot reach you; for the sap of life

That would have sipped the ecstacy of the sun,

Is trapped in the seed.

I have waited too long and toyed with empty words;

They have starved my soul, and now like dead crusts

They lie round me, choking the apertures of life;

I try to reach you through swathes of age-old drivel.

Vainly, idly I talk to you–you, who will not hear;

–The water–soaked faggot meets the flint in vain:

I let you go by.