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

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.

In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose, Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?

I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine. But my heart is all aflutter like the washing on the line.

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.

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

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.