Mating

ROUND clouds roll in the arms of the wind,The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,The wild anemones lieIn undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters plyWhite ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;And, look you, floating just thereby,The blue-gleamed drake stems proudLike Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, thereScramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,Seven toads that meet in the dusk to shareThe darkness that interweavesThe sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-greenspurtsLike a storm of emerald snow, look, seeA great bay stallion dances, skirtsThe bushes sumptuously,Going outward now in the spring to his brief deserts.

Ah love, with your rich, warm face aglow,What sudden expectation opens youSo wide as you watch the catkins blowTheir dust from the birch on the blueLift of the pulsing wind--ah, tell me you know!

Ah, surely! Ah, sure from the golden sunA quickening, masculine gleam floats in to allUs creatures, people and flowers undone,Lying open under his thrall,As he begets the year in us. What, then, would youshun?

Why, I should think that from the earth there flyFine thrills to the neighbour stars, fine yellow beamsThrown lustily off from our full-blown, highBursting globe of dreams,To quicken the spheres that are virgin still in the sky.

Do you not hear each morsel thrillWith joy at travelling to plant itself withinThe expectant one, therein to instilNew rapture, new shape to win,From the thick of life wake up another will?

Surely, and if that I would spillThe vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life,From off my brimming measure, to fillYou, and flush you rifeWith increase, do you call it evil, and always evil?