Chapter XII

At the time when I had long suffered and the
hours were snares to me, you appeared to me as
the welcoming light that shines from the windows
on to the snow in the depths of winter evenings.

The brightness of your hospitable soul touched my
heart lightly without wounding it, like a hand of
tranquil warmth.

Then came a holy trust, and an open heart, and
affection, and the union at last of our two
loving hands, one evening of clear understanding
and of gentle calm.

Since then, although summer has followed frost
both in ourselves and beneath the sky whose
eternal flames deck with gold all the paths of
our thoughts;

And although our love has become an immense
flower, springing from proud desire, that ever
begins anew within our heart, to grow yet better;

I still look back on the small light that was
sweet to me, the first.

XIII

And what matters the wherefores and the reasons,
and who we were and who we are; all doubt is dead
in this garden of blossoms that opens up in us
and about us, so far from men.

I do not argue, and do not desire to know, and
nothing will disturb what is but mystery and
gentle raptures and involuntary fervour and
tranquil soaring towards our heaven of hope.

I feel your brightness before understanding that
you are so; and it is my gladness, infinitely, to
perceive myself thus gently loving without asking
why your voice calls me.

Let us be simple and good--and day be minister of
light and affection to us; and let them say that
life is not made for a love like ours.

XIV

In my dreams, I sometimes pair you with those
queens who slowly descend the golden, flowered
stairways of legend; I give you names that are
married with beauty, splendour and gladness, and
that rustle in silken syllables along verses
built as a platform for the dance of words and
their stately pageantries.

But how quickly I tire of the game, seeing you
gentle and wise, and so little like those whose
attitudes men embellish.

Your brow, so shining and pure and white with
certitude, your gentle, childlike hands peaceful
upon your knees, your breasts rising and falling
with the rhythm of your pulse that beats like
your immense, ingenuous heart,

Oh! how everything, except that and your prayer,
oh! how everything is poor and empty, except the
light that gazes at me and welcomes me in your
naked eyes.

XV

I dedicate to your tears, to your smile, my
gentlest thoughts, those I tell you, those also
that remain undefined and too deep to tell.

I dedicate to your tears, to your smile, to your
whole soul, my soul, with its tears and its
smiles and its kiss.

See, the dawn whitens the ground that is the
colour of lees of wine; shadowy bonds seem to
slip and glide away with melancholy; the water
of the ponds grows bright and sifts its noise;
the grass glitters and the flowers open, and the
golden woods free themselves from the night.

Oh! what if we could one day enter thus into the
full light; oh, what if we could one day, with
conquering cries and lofty prayers, with no more
veils upon us and no more remorse in us, oh! what
if we could one day enter together into lucid
love.

XVI

I drown my entire soul in your two eyes, and
the mad rapture of that frenzied soul, so that,
having been steeped in their gentleness and
prayer, it may be returned to me brighter and of
truer temper.

O for a union that refines the being, as two
golden windows in the same apse cross their
differently lucent fires and interpenetrate!

I am sometimes so heavy, so weary of being one
who cannot be perfect, as he would! My heart
struggles with its desires, my heart whose evil
weeds, between the rocks of stubbornness, rear
slyly their inky or burning flowers;

My heart, so false, so true, as the day may be,
my contradictory heart, my heart ever exaggerated
with immense joy or with criminal fear.

XVII

To love with our eyes, let us lave our gaze of
the gaze of those whose glances we have crossed,
by thousands, in life that is evil and enthralled.

The dawn is of flowers and dew and the mildest
sifted light; soft plumes of silver and sun seem
through the mists to brush and caress the mosses
in the garden.

Our blue and marvellous ponds quiver and come to
life with shimmering gold; emerald wings pass
under the trees; and the brightness sweeps from
the roads, the garths and the hedges the damp
ashen fog in which the twilight still lingers.