Said the tiger to the lily, Said the viper to the rose, Let us marry so our children May attain the double pose. With a feline half a flower With the attar in the asp We could institute a slaughter That would make a planet gasp.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy, And the janitor's boy loves me; He's going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography.

Across the downs a hummingbird Came dipping through the bowers, He pivoted on emptiness To scrutinize the flowers.

There is a glory in a great mistake.

The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting, For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering. And the touch of absent mindedness is more than any line, Since direction counts for nothing when the gods set up a sign.

Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue; Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies.

When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years Revisions of the ruby and the rose.