Classic Poem

Let them have your laughter, give me only
All the withheld tears, the broken glory,
All the depth and silence of your spirit;
What have I to do with your exalting?
I can simply touch your fragrant garlands
Timidly, and wonder why you let me.

Always when I ask you why you let me
You seem half afraid, and tell me only
That I am the goddess of your garlands
And my fingers touch them into glory
Loftier than all the world's exalting,
Warm still with the murmur of a spirit.

O if I could hover with my spirit,
Breathe my wings about you! If you let me
Bruise them, let them bleed for your exalting,
They would know a darker flame that only
Comes when love is crushed and burned with glory,
Comes when love is dust beneath your garlands!

For I cannot weave you any garlands,
I can merely offer up my spirit
On the breathing altar of your glory,
Dumbed with one desire: will you let me
Burn at least for your sake, blaze, if only
To be one more torch for your exalting?

Sappho sang her heart out in exalting
Love, and braided for him throbbing garlands,
Yet the young white-throated shepherd only
Smiled and took with them her bleeding spirit. . . .
O if love, the lord of flutes, would let me
Fill some pulse of music with your glory!

But my song is silence, and my glory
Silence, for the moment of exalting
Chokes the song: and love will never let me
Wreathe a lyric mist into your garlands;
Rather will the tumult of my spirit
Beat its own voice down and leave you only.

You alone, one voice, amid your garlands,
While I kneel beneath your singing spirit
Hushed, and hear your chords of triumph only!