A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

When a starry, panther-bodied night, like a hibernating waking coma patient, spreads out on my beautifully made bed, like another plea for mercy, or a whispering prayer, my day over my head. 

I gaze with childish fright at mourners who carry in urns alone the human, wasting mourning, while a defenceless little girl buries her linen-blond head in her mother's arms.

Ó! What fatal battles thou hast, dear human soul! I would flee, if I could, into caressing, tender maternal bosom. My blessed, forgiving Dearest would charm my panting, bald locks-but dully, murderous-haunted, the claw of night comes evermore, Like the wounded knife sprays; Her moon's crescent gold falls on me Like spikes of sparking showers!

In my joyful arms I would hold thy flaming Angel-body. Trembling with the vows of stupefied sighs of the Omnipotence, I murmur, 'Thinkest thou still of me now and then, Sweet? I cannot avoid my suspicion that we cannot yet be together, and our consecrated life will be shattered like broken human wreckage.

I would whisper, if I could, in thy dear ashen ear, "Take me now, my protector, for I am shivering with assassin fear!"- Thy sad, distant memory, my hard, cottering mind can understand only too late... I'll throw away my painful spleen-tendons. Let them go and be gone from me. Enough is enough! - As the gloomy night passes, The proud golden honey-ray of days, As thy caracan smile again greets...