From age’s clear core I smile to your youth
To your proud beauty, facing it out
Against your eyes like stars bewildering my way,
To melt inside it I oppose my genius, keep away.
I present you my spirit, I do not kiss your lips
Leaning as over a flower, I pick you to can breathe...
You are not anymore a carnal-minded being,
Ruther from which I absorb life and gather chrism, a calyx
I do not count my years, the pith don’t slay in grace
With the ideal force, I’m drawing near me your dear face,
I yoke virtues and passions at the great poetry
Within, without stamps of belay dust,

I melt you too unwillingly; for the wise man
The sky has no threshold, the earth no butt.

Thursday, 2 December 1954