Clerks. 

 WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light. Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come aflower To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the hour. Now at last the ink and dudgeon passes from our fervent eyes And out of the chambered weariness wanders a spirit abroad on its enterprise. Not too near and not too far Out of the stress of the crowd Music screams as elephants scream When they lift their trunks and scream aloud For joy of the night when masters are Asleep and adream. So here I hide in the Shalimar With a wanton princess slender and proud, And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud Of golden dust, with star after star On our stream. 

  

  

       GIPSY     

      I, THE man with the red scarf, Will give thee what I have, this last week's earn-              ings.      Take them, and buy thee a silver ring And wed me, to ease my yearnings. For the rest, when thou art wedded I'll wet my brow for thee With sweat, I'll enter a house for thy sake, Thou shalt shut doors on me. 

  

  

       TWO-FOLD     

      How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving All with a flash of blue!—when will she be leaving Her room, where the night still hangs like a half-          folded bat, And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, like must in a vat. 

  

  

       UNDER THE OAK     

      You, if you were sensible, When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, You would not turn and answer me      "The night is wonderful."       Even you, if you knew How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to dis-         tinguish What hurts, from what amuses. For I tell you Beneath this 

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