No More Learning

Clair de Lune

The moon was serene and played on the waves -

The window still open, free to the breeze,

The Sultana gazes, and the sea that heaves

Down there dark isles with silver laves.

The lute escapes from her vibrant fingers.

She listens. . . A soft sound strikes soft echoes.

A Turkish trader from Cos's waters,

Up from the isles of Greece on Tartar oars?

Or cormorants plunging one by one, cutting

The flood, pearls flying from their wings?

Or a Djinn above in a thin voice piping,

Hurling high towers in the sea as he spins?

Who stirs the waves by the women's seraglio?

Not the cormorant, cradled there on the sea,

Not stones from the walls, or the rhythmic beat

Of a trader's oars thrashing the waves below.

But heaving sacks, from which sobs break free.

See them, sounding the flood that floats them on,

Moving their sides like human forms. . .
Not the cormorant, cradled there on the sea,

Not stones from the walls, or the rhythmic beat

Of a trader's oars thrashing the waves below.

But heaving sacks, from which sobs break free.

See them, sounding the flood that floats them on,

Moving their sides like human forms. . .

The moon was serene and played on the sea.

Since I have touched my lips. . .

Since I have touched my lips to your brimming cup,

Since I have bowed my pale brow in your hands,

Since I have sometime breathed the sweet breath

Of your soul, a perfume buried in shadow lands;

Since it was granted to me to hear you utter

Words in which the mysterious heart sighs,

Since I have seen smiles, since I have seen tears

Your mouth on my mouth, your eyes on my eyes;

Since I have seen over my enraptured head

A light from your star shine, ah, ever veiled!

Since I have seen falling to my life's flood

The leaf of a rose snatched from out your days,

Now at last I can say to the fleeting years:

- Pass by! Pass by, forever! No more age!

Away with you and all your withered flowers,

I have a flower in my soul no one can take!

Your wings, brushing it, spill never a drop

From the glass I fill, from which my thirst I quench.

My soul possesses more fire than you have ashes!