Tarantella
From New Poems (1916).
1
Sad as he sits on the white sea-stone
And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,
And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders.
He sits like a shade by the flood alone
While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the croon
Of my mockery mocks at him over the waves' bright shoulders.
2
What can I do but dance alone,
Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,
For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs and the foam on my feet?
For surely this earnest man has none
Of the night in his soul, and none of the tune
Of the waters within him; only the world's old wisdom to bleat.
3
I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down the glittering shingle,
A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyes
And falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kiss
On his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingle
To touch the sea in the last surprise
Of fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss.