Nuit Blanche

I want no horns to rouse me up to-night,And trumpets make too clamorous a ringTo fit my mood, it is so weary whiteI have no wish for doing any thing.

A music coaxed from humming strings would please;Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadencesAcross a sunset wall where some MarquisePicks a pale rose amid strange silences.

Ghostly and vaporous her gown seeps byThe twilight dusking wall, I hear her feetDelaying on the gravel, and a sigh,Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet.

And it is dark, I hear her feet no more.A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank.A drunken moon ogling a sycamore,Running long fingers down its shining flank.

A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown,Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass.Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown—'Kiss me, red lips, and then pass—pass.

Music, you are pitiless to-night.And I so old, so cold, so languorously white.