From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.

My heart is a garden tired with autumn.

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf, That color every drop they hold, To change the lifeless wine of grief To living gold.

Old love, old love, / How can I be true? / Shall I be faithless to myself / Or to you?

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough; And I shall be more silent and cold hearted than you are now.

How many million Aprils came before I ever knew how white a cherry bough could be, a bed of squills, how blue And many a dancing April when life is done with me, will lift the blue flame of the flower and the white flame of the tree Oh burn me with your beauty then, oh hurt me tree and flower, lest in the end death try to take even this glistening hour.