Ezra Pound

From “Contemporania”

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

DARK-EYED,

O woman of my dreams,

Ivory sandaled,

There is none like thee among the dancers,

None with swift feet.

I have not found thee in the tents,

In the broken darkness.

I have not found thee at the well-head

Among the women with pitchers.

Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark;

Thy face as a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders;

As new almonds stripped from the husk.

They guard thee not with eunuchs;

Not with bars of copper.

Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.

A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns,

hast thou gathered about thee,

O Nathat-Ikanaie, “Tree-at-the-river.”

As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;

Thy fingers a frosted stream.

Thy maidens are white like pebbles;

Their music about thee!

There is none like thee among the dancers;

None with swift feet.