A silver sea beneath the stars--
We paid to love his mystic rites,
And from thy lips I kissed the scars
Of fiercer joys and stranger nights.
What redder lips, what mouth of fate,
Till Buddha noddeth near the goal,
Shall, stronger still, obliterate
My one night’s madness from thy soul?
I brand thee through eternity,
Upon thy blood I set my seal,
And boy and girl and change and sea
Cannot wipe out my mark or heal.
While the great life-snake sheds its coat,
I must rehearse my tragic part,
To kiss the love-wounds from thy throat,
And burn the iron in thy--heart.