DEATH IN THE DESERT •
THOSE signs upon his face, love's strange stigmata, Mark him as passion's child no casual berry, Not frigid duty's fruit, no sprig of habit But flower of lovers' single union: Their shining jewel, passion's hoarded treasure.
He lies the child of twenty generations
For when two stars drawn a, .ach other's sphere
Strain from their orbits, fuse in a single fire, From their bright wreck a new star shines in space, Brighter more lovely, There is a Himalayan orchis darkly broods A hundred years within its quickening root Till on a single night desire that fountain Thrusts through the radiant snow dark leaves of longing From whose dark sheath springs then the darker shaft, A shadowy tower up thrust of pure desire: And in the stillness of the frozen air The blossoms break And like a flight of wild white butterflies Maddened by moonlight hang on the trembling stem Through the slow passing of the winter night And in the morning wither. Flower and stem Shrink down into the root, itself dissolves.
Nothing is left—no sign, no vestige lingers.
Only upon the eye that once beheld.
Such beauty, lies a pattern of perfection.
So he upon my heart his image leaves Who now his fair head rests upon the sand Soon fairer •lying, carrion-cleansed bone, Past Beauty's shadow and her skeleton.
SHEILA' SHANNON.
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