Desire

I would sing thy face
Sitting here in the firelight;
Mid the senseless noise of guns
Comes it as a flower between the flames.

Sea-blue thine eyes, and bright as hawk's are,
Yet frail thy face as an image in clear water
As a pearl lying there, hidden or plain, when light
Wavers upon it: mobile as thy moods are
Or faint as a star in the mist's milk:
And frail thine hands,
Delicate,
Hovering in infinite slow gesture, nigh speech
Hesitating, poised,
Fragile: they would not mar
Gray bloom on a ripe plum.

I would sing thy face
To forget this....
But thy face sings to me from the slim flames
And my praise is silence, and my prayer.