Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?

Across the dunes, in the waning light,

The rising moon pours her amber rays,

Through the slumbrous air of the dim, brown night

The pungent smell of the seaweed strays—

     From vast and trackless spaces

       Where wind and water meet,

         White flowers, that rise from the sleepless deep,

             Come drifting to my feet.

     They flutter the shore in a drowsy tune,

       Unfurl their bloom to the lightlorn sky,

         Allow a caress to the rising moon,

             Then fall to slumber, and fade, and die.

White flowers, a-bloom on the vagrant deep,

Like dreams of love, rising out of sleep,

You are the songs, I dreamt but never sung,

Pale hopes my thoughts alone have known,

Vain words ne’er uttered, though on the tongue,

That winds to the sibilant seas have blown.

      In you, I see the everlasting drift of years

        That will endure all sorrows, smiles and tears;

          For when the bell of time will ring the doom

            To all the follies of the human race,

               You still will rise in fugitive bloom

                  And garland the shores of ruined space.