The Fountain

My dear, your eyes are weary; Rest them a little while. Assume the languid posture Of pleasure mixed with guile. Outside the talkative fountain Continues night and day Repeating my warm passion In whatever it has to say. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears. Thus your soul ignited By pleasure’s lusts and needs Sprays into heaven’s reaches And dreams of fiery deeds. Then it brims over, dying, And languorous, apart, Drains down some slope and enters The dark well of my heart. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears. O you, whom night enhances, How sweet here at your breasts To hear the eternal sadness Of water that never rests. O moon, o singing fountain, O leaf-thronged night above, You are the faultless mirrors Of my sweet, bitter love. The sheer luminous gown The fountain wears Where Phoebe’s very own Color appears Falls like a summer rain Or shawl of tears.