I heard a woman sing a song, once
And I thought, then, that she loved me
As that golden clavier came for Peter Quince
Water from on water twinkled gently
There that sky is the color of green,
A line stretching from the stars to her feet;
There that harmony lends us both a sheen,
A lazy afterglow of dream's true heat.
Paternoster, open the space of futures told
And drop us, orbs of blue, inside Her gravity well;
What was grows bigger in the lips of old
If the fate's alive and time does tell.
Merry Christmas, Morning Star of inconstant hue;
No less than leaves the grave my song loves you.
ii
In islands out of vulcan time
I sit, reclining in the capitol
Between the tree and cosmic rhyme
I know not wonder from love's chapel.
Not out of words or virtues steady
March the wheeling orbs of loves rotunda;
Convival hands plucking Apple from the huntress ready
To consume the wheeling firmament of honey's plunder.
Having all we wont and wanting nothing,
God's only Mother hastens our retreat;
Her only Lord is scything waves to nothing
But we wont to wash upon their heavenly feet.
Her only wish to body body tiding;
His only name is mortal in confiding.