Love All

As lilies fade most foully in the summer dusk,

we spend this time together, lost in the sluttish garden’s fust.

You and I and dust, Love’s Trinity, attempt to scale infinity.

Your lips beneath my own – ah, sweet to sip from and to kiss! –

hold full around the wine of bliss.

                                                 A flip-flop slips on rotting plants;

on languid, naked parts, red ants prick out their dance.

On their advance, the dark sustains a maddened cry of pain

that rises, drops and dies with throbbing sobs along the night.

The hope of more delight decays.

                                                Must you so slight

my sore misfortune here beneath a hoary moon?

Ah me! I moan and writhe beside the lilies’ doom.