Malade - Free Audiobook

EXCURSION

     I WONDER, can the night go by;
     Can this shot arrow of travel fly
     Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
         Of a dawned to-morrow,
     Without ever sleep delivering us
     From each other, or loosing the dolorous
         Unfruitful sorrow!

     What is it then that you can see
     That at the window endlessly
     You watch the red sparks whirl and flee
         And the night look through?
     Your presence peering lonelily there
     Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear
         To share the train with you.

     You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;
     I wish I could put you away from me;
     I suffocate in this intimacy,
         For all that I love you;
     How I have longed for this night in the train,
     Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain
         To God to remove you.

     But surely my soul's best dream is still
     That one night pouring down shall swill
     Us away in an utter sleep, until
         We are one, smooth-rounded.
     Yet closely bitten in to me
     Is this armour of stiff reluctancy
         That keeps me impounded.

     So, dear love, when another night
     Pours on us, lift your fingers white
     And strip me naked, touch me light,
         Light, light all over.
     For I ache most earnestly for your touch,
     Yet I cannot move, however much
         I would be your lover.

     Night after night with a blemish of day
     Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;
     Come another night, come a new night, say
         Will you pluck me apart?
     Will you open the amorous, aching bud
     Of my body, and loose the burning flood
         That would leap to you from my heart?