Receipt

Robert Roe

It is sweet to be loved.
The white roses by the tall window
Turned in the moonlight,
Swayed in the breeze that brought me their fragrance.
You, like a dark-rose,
Turned in the dusky room
And my mouth caught your breath's sweetness
Blown on the passion of your words.
It is sweet to be loved.
It is dear to perceive
How you are like spicy crisp violets,
And to know I am loved
While our supple and pliant young bodies are one.
It is dear to be loved.
It is painfully dear to perceive
How you are like odorous dusky roses
Dancing in the moonlight
That invades my decorous old-fashioned room,
And your hair, like leaves, flutters on your neck
Until you skip into my bed and my arms
Like a rose tossed to a lover.
In the dimness, in the quietude,
In the sleeping solitude of the town,
In your quiet breathing,
Some holiness descends upon me
And I whisper a song to your sleep:
   Oh who would marry a moonbeam
   Save he were a star?
   Oh who would marry the seafoam
   Save he were the moon?
   In the heart of a flower
   Only a bee can sleep.
   Who dare espouse a torrent
   But a swift bright trout?
   A man may not mate with an odor of flowers-
   It must be a south wind.
   À man may not marry a fountain,
   And there are no more gods.
I visited an abandoned playground of gods,
And there in the dark I heard a river rushing
Down the tilted floor of the valley,
And afar off the noise of waters falling
From the heights.

I was drowned in the noise of waters . . .
So love comes to you, rushes to you.
You are like a valley in high mountains
That the gods love and favor.
And sweetly you sleep . . .
It is sweet to be loved.
So to awake in the dawn,
With blue stealing upon the sky
As the temper creeps on dark steel
Turning it radiant... .
So to awake in the dawn,
Calm and so peaceful,
With the sound of the slow fishermen
Home from the night and the sea,
With the soft-booted tread of the fishermen
Returned from the restless dark sea
Filling the streets. . . .
It is sweet to have loved and to wake in the dawn
Calm, rested, contented and sure . . .
It is life to have loved... .
Wives and mistresses bring to their lovers and husbands
Immortality in offspring.
You have brought me memories forever,
Songs forever.
It is life to be loved-
You have given me life!