Aldington Images

Like a gondola of green scented fruits

Drifting along the dark canals of Venice,

You, O exquisite one,

Have entered my desolate city.

The blue smoke leaps

Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.

So my love leaps towards you,

Vanishes and is renewed.

A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky

When the sunset is faint vermilion

On the mist among the tree-boughs

Are you to me.

A young beech tree on the edge of a forest

Stands still in the evening,

Then shudders through all its leaves in the light air

And seems to fear the stars—

So are you still and so tremble.

The red deer are high on the mountain,

They are beyond the last pine trees.

And my desires have run with them.

The flower which the wind has shaken

Is soon filled again with rain:

So does my heart fill slowly with tears

Until you return.