I gave you sorrow to hang on your wall 
Like a calendar in one color. 
I wear a torn place on my sleeve. 

Now the small buds are pronged
to the boughs like candle-butts.
Steaming April! The adolescent park 

I can still hear her.
She hobbles downstairs to the kitchen.
She is swearing at the dishes.

But never fall from fealty to light.
You said, Melville? Now, by God, sir, why not?
The pall is comfortable enough; as soon rot

So huge is God’s despair
In the wild cactus plain
I heard Him weeping there

Come celebrate, kinsmen, the twilight of freedom,
The darkening conscience, the great year obscured;
Into the boiling waters of nightfall

I shall not see the famous Phédre 
In the ancient theatre crowned with tiers, 
Its gallery rising smoky, high, 

Tousle-haired star
Hurrying into nothing
Out of a horrid nowhere

Tighter and tighter wringing my hands
Till they be riven—
Between us are not the miles of earth

The grapes in the royal garden have rusted
And the concubine, waiting, sleeps by the wall.
Veins of Palestine, heavy with sap,