.
In the absence of her—
The night is long and I am still,
Breathing in the vacant minutes
That fade and fall only to reappear
When least unbidden, when only lost
In droning dream my heart is bleeding,
For final days to come, if only as delusion,
I wait for the bewitching hours of drunken wine
And tearing rose, until it falls, all goes running,
Her voice like apparition comes, so sensual
Are the hours— that long for the body of her
Voice, the crisp cantatas of her woken eyes,
The blush and the strums of her fingers, fey
As they mercilessly play with mortal mine,
In these last, longing hours I am— as I was,
Heir to her voice, now, so— we alone toast,
To my spare thee, red haired 'Green Faery,'
Honored lost, sweet angel of my horror,
“Le Fin Absolue du Monde.”
This praise is my principality, echoes of moors,
Stations, entrenched by murky moat, modes
Of funereal reds— maddening strands of her
Strange hairs breath, false songs, by forte
Nights, wounds, crowning lips of thorn
As they flower and smoke me out.
How do I fear but do not dread,
Regaled in crest fallen silences,
My deathly aubade of days?