Alan Seeger

La Nue

Oft when sweet music undulated round,
    Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea
Thine image from the waves of blissful sound
    Rose and thy sudden light illumined me.

And in the country, leaf and flower and air
    Would alter and the eternal shape emerge;
Because they spoke of thee the fields seemed fair,
    And Joy to wait at the horizon's verge.

The little cloud-gaps in the east that filled
    Gray afternoons with bits of tenderest blue
Were windows in a palace pearly-silled
    That thy voluptuous traits came glimmering through.

And in the city, dominant desire
    For which men toil within its prison-bars,
I watched thy white feet moving in the mire
    And thy white forehead hid among the stars.

Mystical, feminine, provoking, nude,
    Radiant there with rosy arms outspread,
Sum of fulfillment, sovereign attitude,
    Sensual with laughing lips and thrown-back head,

Draped in the rainbow on the summer hills,
    Hidden in sea-mist down the hot coast-line,
Couched on the clouds that fiery sunset fills,
    Blessed, remote, impersonal, divine;

The gold all color and grace are folded o'er,
    The warmth all beauty and tenderness embower, —
Thou quiverest at Nature's perfumed core,
    The pistil of a myriad-petalled flower.

Round thee revolves, illimitably wide,
    The world's desire, as stars around their pole.
Round thee all earthly loveliness beside
    Is but the radiate, infinite aureole.

Thou art the poem on the cosmic page —
    In rubric written on its golden ground —
That Nature paints her flowers and foliage
    And rich-illumined commentary round.

Thou art the rose that the world's smiles and tears
    Hover about like butterflies and bees.
Thou art the theme the music of the spheres
    Echoes in endless, variant harmonies.

Thou art the idol in the altar-niche
    Faced by Love's congregated worshippers,
Thou art the holy sacrament round which
    The vast cathedral is the universe.

Thou art the secret in the crystal where,
    For the last light upon the mystery Man,
In his lone tower and ultimate despair,
    Searched the gray-bearded Zoroastrian.

And soft and warm as in the magic sphere,
    Deep-orbed as in its erubescent fire,
So in my heart thine image would appear,
    Curled round with the red flames of my desire.