Chapter XXXII

That little song you sang to me, Dear One,
Has blotted out the present, brought to view
This painted vision that a pagan knew:
Quai of Alexandria, low, fading sun,
Frail, floating, purple night-shadows that run
Across sands deeply bronze, dulled by no dew;
A maid, nude, save for gauze crocus in hue
Through which shines polished flesh like to a sun.

Two flute players stroll past unto the feasts,
Flower-ankleted and girdled—Joy’s young Priests;
Beside the crocus maid they pause and sing
In shrill tones colored like the bronze evening.
She hears and trembles her gold gauzes through:
“_O le désir est douloureux et doux!_”