Anno Domini

Our moon of love is dark within my heart

And our glad suns have set on desert sands:

My young spouse, long awaited, walks apart

Since his strange journey to Judean lands.

I was so dear before . . . how memory tears!

Now from my lips and arms he is more far

Than when in Bethlehem. My lover cares

For none but Melchior and Balthasar.

Why do his princely guests still tarry so?

One left a queen who withers-he is old.

The Moor has concubines. The two should go

Home to their women, and their myrrh and gold.

The kings talk low together with a zest

That.my poor words can never reach or mar.

I call in vain: "Gaze on me, not the West!

My lord of life, come back! I die, Gaspar!"

He is too beautiful and ruddy-haired

For sainthood, yet his high look frightened me

Away, when his shut door of sleep I dared.

What is this holiness they feel and see,

The beardless and the bearded, black and white,

Lost to sweet earth? What fools these wise men are!

I creep close, listening in the silver night:

They speak in riddles of a Child, a Star.