Hyde Park At Night, Before The War

_Clerks_.

WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night / Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light.

Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come aflower / To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the hour.

Now at last the ink and dudgeon passes from our fervent eyes / And out of the chambered weariness wanders a spirit abroad on its enterprise.

Not too near and not too far / Out of the stress of the crowd / Music screams as elephants scream / When they lift their trunks and scream aloud / For joy of the night when masters are / Asleep and adream.

So here I hide in the Shalimar / With a wanton princess slender and proud, / And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem / Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud / Of golden dust, with star after star / On our stream.