Song For The Last Act

Now that I have your face by heart,

I

Less at its features than its darkening

Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,

Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.

Beyond, a garden,

There, in insolent

The lead and marble figures watch the

Of yet another summer loath to

Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart,

I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart,

I

In the black chords upon a dulling

Music that is not meant for music's cage,

Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.

The staves are shuttled over with a

Unprinted silence.

In a double dreamI must spell out the storm, the running stream.

The beat's too swift.

The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart,

I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart,

I

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;

The rigging and the cargo and the

On a strange beach under a broken sky.

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor

Its red rust downward, and the long vine

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart,

I see.