Voyages IV

White Buildings

Whose counted smile of hours and days, supposeI know as spectrum of the sea and pledgeVastly now parting gulf on gulf of wingsWhose circles bridge, I know, (from palms to the severeChilled albatross’s white immutability)No stream of greater love advancing nowThan, singing, this mortality aloneThrough clay aflow immortally to you.

All fragrance irrefragably, and claimMadly meeting logically in this hourAnd region that is ours to wreathe again,Portending eyes and lips and making toldThe chancel port and portion of our June-

Shall they not stem and close in our own stepsBright staves of flowers and quills today as IMust first be lost in fatal tides to tell?

In signature of the incarnate wordThe harbor shoulders to resign in minglingMutual blood, transpiring as foreknownAnd widening noon within your breast for gatheringAll bright insinuations that my years have caughtFor islands where must lead inviolablyBlue latitudes and levels of your eyes,-

In this expectant, still exclaim receiveThe secret oar and petals of all love.

from White Buildings (1926)