O is it life or death, O is it hope or memory, That quiets all things with this breath Of the eternal sea?

 

MASKS AND FACES.

 

PASTEL.

THE light of our cigarettes Went and came in the gloom:  It was dark in the little room.

Dark, and then, in the dark, Sudden, a flash, a glow, And a hand and a ring I know.

And then, through the dark, a flush Ruddy and vague, the grace—  A rose—of her lyric face.

 

HER EYES.

BENEATH the heaven of her brows’  Unclouded noon of peace, there lies A leafy heaven of hazel boughs In the seclusion of her eyes;

Her troubling eyes that cannot rest; And there’s a little flame that dances (A firefly in a grassy nest)  In the green circle of her glances;

A frolic Faun that must be hid, Shyly, in some fantastic shade, Where pity droops a tender lid On laughter of itself afraid.

 

MORBIDEZZA.

WHITE girl, your flesh is lilies Grown ’neath a frozen moon, So still is The rapture of your swoon Of whiteness, snow or lilies.

The virginal revealment, Your bosom’s wavering slope, Concealment, ’Neath fainting heliotrope, Of whitest white’s revealment,

Is like a bed of lilies, A jealous-guarded row, Whose will is Simply chaste dreams:—but oh, The alluring scent of lilies!

 

MAQUILLAGE.

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