All very rough.
Kalaratri in the Starlight
Come now, come now, said the woman's smile
as she leaned on the wooden fence,
come now, come now, said the woman's voice
with the coaxing that never relents.
And she looked me all over with sparkling eye
and she blushed and she smiled once more,
and she flirted at me with lash and with glance
and with form that held good things in store.
My love is another's, I quietly said,
and though your deep eyes are bright,
and though you reach up with a willow-tree grace,
I am for another by right.
And she smiled again and with softest of purrs
she replied that true love left no choice,
for when true lovers meet under full moon
the fates speak in inexorable voice
of destinies laid from the first of the world
that cannot be turned or undone,
and when she loved a man, that loving was sure,
and she loved, and I was the one.
But a bright, lovely girl awaits me, I know,
hopes to see me in clear morning light,
and how can a man seek honor and truth
who dallies with strangers at night?
Ah, said the lady, as she quickly drew near
and I felt the brush of the warmth of her breath,
but these frail mundane loves are but passing sighs;
I speak true, or my name is not Death.
Then she trickled her finger down the bridge of my nose,
took my pale face in her hands,
and she smiled then at me under the stars
and kissed me as I fell to the sand.
Violet
Our hearts were beating in the dusky silence.
Your great dark eyes with a touch of velvet
stroked my face and carressed my soul;
the night grew warm as the air grew cold,
and all the colors of this fragile world,
reds and greens with yellows curled,
were drowned by force like tides that roll,
were washed away in a rush of gold.
The gold in turn was drained away
to some dark shade of yesterday
and our hearts still beat in the shadowed silence
as the world was steeped in a sea of violet.
Envy
I have wallked the road of envy;
the darkness in that wood
grows tangled all around you
to choke out every good.
That jungle knows no reason
as it twists each thought with sin--
rather burn the hall of concert
than play second violin--
and hatred of one's neighbor
for good they have that you do not
becomes hatred of that very good
for not being where you sought,
and to spite another's vision
you pluck out your seeing eye
and in your heart's rich fallow
hell takes root, and lie.
