The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down; The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown; The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way. Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.

Nathalia Crane

Categorized in : Running Eye Circles

You cannot choose your battlefield,

Nathalia Crane

society business doe

In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose, Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?

Nathalia Crane

color darkness rose

Across the downs a hummingbird Came dipping through the bowers, He pivoted on emptiness To scrutinize the flowers.

Nathalia Crane

scrutinize emptiness flower

The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting, For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering. And the touch of absent mindedness is more than any line, Since direction counts for nothing when the gods set up a sign.

Nathalia Crane

lines bees tails

The starry brocade of the summer night Is linked to us as part of our estate; And every bee that wings its sidelong flight Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate.

Nathalia Crane

fate summer night

The sun shall shine in ages yet to be, The musing moon illumine pastures dim, And afterwards a new nativity For all who slept the dreamless interim.

Nathalia Crane

shining moon age

Let go the lure

Nathalia Crane

letting-go mistake heart

There is a glory in a great mistake.

Nathalia Crane

great-mistakes glory mistake

The rose has told

Nathalia Crane

ancient simplicity rose

Lo and behold! God made this

Nathalia Crane

taught shade contentment

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy, And the janitor's boy loves me; He's going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography.

Nathalia Crane

geography desert boys

When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years Revisions of the ruby and the rose.

Nathalia Crane

waiting rose years

Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue; Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies.

Nathalia Crane

butterfly vision blue

A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth, But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth. The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below; They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Makers Row. They listen for the laughter from the antics of the earth; They lower pails from heaven's walls to catch the milk-maids mirth.

Nathalia Crane

wall laughter angel

Said the tiger to the lily, Said the viper to the rose, Let us marry so our children May attain the double pose. With a feline half a flower With the attar in the asp We could institute a slaughter That would make a planet gasp.

Nathalia Crane

flower rose children

The world is growing gentle, But few know what she owes To the understanding lily And the judgment of the rose.

Nathalia Crane

understanding rose world

Great is the rose

Nathalia Crane

tombs indifferent rose

I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine. But my heart is all aflutter like the washing on the line.

Nathalia Crane

moonlight lines heart