To A Gitana Dancing Seville

SE you are fair as souls of the lost are fair,

And your eyelids laugh with desire, and your laughing feet Are winged with desire, and your hands are wanton, and sweet Is the promise of love in your lips, and the rose in your hair Sweet, unfaded, a promise sweet to be sought,

And the maze you tread is as old as the world is old,

Therefore, you hold me, body and soul, in your hold,

And time, as you dance, is not, and the world is as nought.

You dance, and I know the desire of all flesh, and the pain Of all longing of body for body; you reckon, repel,

Entreat, and entice, and bewilder, and build up the spell,

Link by link, with deliberate Steps, of a flower-soft chain.

You laugh, and I know the despair, and you smile, and I know The delight of your love, and the flower in your hair is a Star,

It brightens,

I follow; it fades, and I see it afar;

You pause:

I awake; have I dreamt? was it longer ago Than a dream that I saw you smile? for you turn, you turn,

As a Startled beasl: in the toils: it is you that entreat,

Desperate, hating the coils that have fastened your feet,

The desire you desired that has come; and your lips now yearn,

And your hands now ache, and your feet faint for love.

Longing has taken hold even on you,

You, the witch of desire; and you pause, and anew Your Stillness moves, and you pause, and your hands move.

Time, as you dance, is as nought, and the moments seem Swift as eternity; time is at end, for you close Eyes and lips and hands in sudden repose;

You smile: was it all no longer ago than a dream?