cataclysms, hates...
Pent in the shut flesh.
And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness
unsupportable...
Their eyes--heavy and dimmed
With dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind--
Staring as through a choked glass.
And they gaze at the moon--throwing off a faint heat--
The moon, blond and burning, creeping to their cots
Softly, as on naked feet...
Lolling on the coverlet... like a woman offering her white body.

Nude glory of the moon!
That leaps like an athlete on the bosoms of the young girls stripped
of their linens;
Stroking their breasts that are smooth and cool as mother-of-pearl
Till the nipples tingle and burn as though little lips plucked at them.
They shudder and grow faint.
And their ears are filled as with a delirious rhapsody,
That Life, like a drunken player,
Strikes out of their clear white bodies
As out of ivory keys.

Lights go out...
And the great lovers linger in little groups, still passionately debating,
Or one may walk in silence, listening only to the still summons of Life--
Life making the great Demand...
Calling its new Christs...
Till tears come, blurring the stars
That grow tender and comforting like the eyes of comrades;