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From “Many Evenings”
THE CIGARETTE smoke loops and slides above us, | |
| Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes. | |
| You strike a match and stare upon the flame. | |
| The tiny firelight leaps in your eyes a moment | |
| And dies away as silently as it came. | 5 |
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| This melody, you say, has certain voices— | |
| They rise like nereids from a river, singing, | |
| Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again. | |
| Wherever you go you bear this river with you: | |
| A leaf falls, and it flows, and you have pain. | 10 |
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| So says the tune to you—but what to me? | |
| What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee? | |
| The violinist who suavely draws his bow? | |
| That man, who folds his paper, overhears it. | |
| A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow. | 15 |
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| Someone there is who sees a virgin stepping | |
| Down marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses: | |
| At the last moment she lifts remembering eyes. | |
| Green leaves blow down; the place is checked with shadows; | |
| A long-drawn murmur of rain goes down the skies. | 20 |
| And oaks are stripped and bare, and smoke with lightning; | |
| And clouds are blown and torn upon high forests; | |
| And the great sea shakes its walls. | |
| And then falls silence….. And through long silence falls | |
| This melody once more: | 25 |
| Down endless stairs she goes, as once before. | |
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| So says the tune to him—but what to me? | |
| What are the worlds I see? | |
| What shapes fantastic, terrible dreams? | |
| I go my secret way, down secret alleys. | 30 |
| My errand is not so simple as it seems. | |
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