Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book,
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. 
II
If that apparent part of life's delight
Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen
By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight,
Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen.
Haply Truth's body is no eyable being,
Is the choked vision of blindfolded eyes.
Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought.
All is either the irrational world we see
Or some aught-else whose being-unknown doth rot
Its use for our thought's use. Whence taketh me
A qualm-like ache of life, a body-deep
Soul-hate of what we seek and what we weep.
VIII
How many masks wear we, and undermasks,
Upon our countenance of soul, and when,
If for self-sport the soul itself unmasks,
Knows it the last mask off and the face plain?
The true mask feels no inside to the mask
But looks out of the mask by co-masked eyes.
Whatever conciousness begins the task
The task's accepted use to sleepness ties.
Like a child frighted by its mirrored faces,
Our souls, that children are, being thought-losing,
Foist otherness upon their seen grimaces
And get a whole world on their forgot causing;
And, when a thought would unmask our soul's masking,
Itself goes not unmasked to the unmasking.

Alentejo Seen From The Train

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't here, where the Devil it is?

(1907)
I am the escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.

Meantime

Far away, far away,
	Far away from here...
There is no worry after joy
	Or away from fear
Far away from here.

Her lips were not very red,
	Not her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
	She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.

She is something past,
	Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
	Enter her domain,
	Neither love in vain.

Perhaps at some day beyond
	Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
	All me a delight
	All away from sight.

On An Ankle
 
A SONNET BEARING THE IMPRIMATUR 
OF THE INQUISITOR-GENERAL 
AND OTHER PEOPLE OF DISTINCTION 
AND DECENCY
 
I had a revelation not from high, 
But from below, when thy skirt awhile lifted 
Betrayed such promise that I am not gifted 
With words that may that view well signify. 

And even if my verse that thing would try, 
Hard were it, if that word came to be sifted, 
To find a word that rude would not have shifted 
There from the cold hand of Morality. 

The gaze is nought; mere sight no mind hath wrecked. 
But oh! sweet lady, beyond what is seen 
What things may guess or hint at Disrespect?! 

Sacred is not the beauty of a queen... 
I from thine ankle did as much suspect 
As you from this suspect what I mean.

Why do I desire

Why do I desire 
What I do not need ? 
Why does my soul, like fire, 
Or a hot abstract greed, 
Seek all that is higher ? 

Why, if not because 
It is a soul ? 
Who can know the cause 
When it lies in its whole 
Hidden in laws ? 

Yet this matters not. 
What matters is pining 
And that stress of thought 
That comes of diving 
What to wish that may not be got.

The happy sun is shining
 
The happy sun is shining 
The fields are green and gay, 
But my poor heart is pining 
For something far away. 
It`s pining just for you, 
It`s pining for thy kiss. 
It does not matter if you're true 
To this. 
What matter is just you. 

I now the sea is beaming 
Under the summer sun. 
I know the waves are gleaming, 
Each one and every one. 
But I am far from you, 
And so far from your kiss! 
And that`s all I get that's really true 
In this. 
What matters is just you. 

Oh, yes, the sky is splendid, 
So blue as it now, 
The air and light are blended, 
Oh yes, hot, anyhow, 

Nothing of this is you 
I'm absent from your kiss, 
That`s all I get that`s sad and true 
In this 
What matter is just you.

Epithalamium  *
 
Open the windows and thee doors all wide 
Lest aught of night abide, 
Or, like a ship's trail in the sea, survive 
What made it there to live! 
She lies in bed half waiting that her wish 
Grows bolder or more rich 
To make her rise, or poorer, to oust fear, 
And she rises as a common day were here. 
That she would be a bride in bed with man 
The parts where she is woman do insist 
And send up messages that shame doth ban 
From being dreamed but in a shapeless mist. 
She opens her eyes, the ceiling sees above 
Shutting the small alcove, 
And thinks, till she must shut her eyes again. 
Another ceiling she this night will know, 
Another house, another bed, she lain 
In a way she half guesses; so 
She shuts her eyes to see not the room she 
Soon will no longer see.


* Epithalamium (Greek): epi = upon and thalamium = nuptial chamber. 
Sometimes also spelled "epithalamion". Refers to a form of poem that 
is written for the bride. Specifically written for the bride on the way 
to her marital chamber.