Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/265

ANDRÉ SUARÉS O my sister, burning hot and palest, come to me lest you fall, and let me hold you.

He whom the young women carry on their shoulders, knee-deep in flowers, was your once lover.

Between the sea and the Marne he died for love of our Lady, the Blessed Virgin. He loved ...

As the last flush of sunset suffuses the green ocean the young man is laid amid the wheat.

He is dead. White and naked he lies among the wheat-ears. White are his lips, and his eyes are closed like the eyes of the day. His laughter, the light and sound of him, are gone.

His mouth is ashes. The double flame of his lips is dead. In its flower his manhood is cut down. How beautiful is the young man's body! And stainless is the body of the hero.

The women bend to kiss him one by one, slowly, lingeringly, as grapes are eaten from the vine; and some weep, and others laugh, beside themselves for grieving.

I am the lover, whom you thus bear upon your shoulders; young maidens, I am the betrothed. I am the ploughshare in the wheatfield, whom thus you lay down for burial. And she who should have been my field and my harvest shall die without flower and without ripening.

Save me at least, O pitying women, from the cold earth and from oblivion. Keep me warm in the paradise of your lips, an hour longer keep me among you, in the sweet air that smells of honey and rosemary, of clove-pinks and the flowering mint.

Build about me the warm chamber of your kisses. My sword and my shield are gone from me; deathless, they have no need of the dead.

And for my shrouding, women, wind me about with your long hair, [ 149 ]