the torrent

1

No torrent ever wearied any word

While tempered by the torment of its waves;

On sculptured rocks the tale is still recurred

Of the self-shedding tongues from th' harboured caves

That through the wails they treble undeterred

They stave their raving in th'entrail that paves

A labyrinth where the contiguous ear,

Unfold the scrolls its piped canals endear. 

 

2

What sound confounds the waters in tumult

With the diaphanous bursts deadening the groans

That racks the whirls in their ebb? It's the jolt

Of laughs the bathers puff with wobbled bones

That the tickling cold has wielded to exult

The gilding suns with pale limbs to embronze,

Enshrining the assaults that pricked the linen

Of the water's weather mirrored hymen.

 

3

The saplings of the brambles limn with leaves

The trembling air that's gathered on the stream,

To shroud, in dipping tips, the floating nymphs

That chase their quick smile through the crystal beam

Beaded by the spray they sways, as each cleaves

To th' other's skins girt by their levied steam. 

On this idyllic scene, the brumles flush

Fanning piously above the foaming blush.

 

4

With rumbling strokes, the currents' elbowed bowls flow,

Spurned by the neighs that mount upon the shore

To bosom what turmoil of manes they borrow

In silver foils nipped from the sand' sieved ore;

Through curls of blazoning crests, row forgo row,

Till in the reeling breast of winds at war,

The twinkled trot has armoured the faint blues,

Whose twitching winks bestow its depths to view.

 

5

Enveloping the slope and its lush plains,

That lull the clouds from their high snowy throne

To milk the knotted roots of mountain chains

Through ribs of pebbles that the ebbs disown,

Green pools and pastures weave their furrowed veins,

And guide, on tributary lens, the dawn

By a pageantry of golden pollen led-

The fleece of dreams, perpetually a-bed.

 

6

Yet every thought that nature lavishes,

On gowns that don th' aisle to her altar's flare,

Grows mute with each new hue that nourishes

Fragrances where memories ensnare

The seed of their prime joy, that vanishes

When awe of its frail vessel is aware.

Such is the richness that her womb incenses,

Inspired breaths can't quench the fire of their senses.

 

7

Together with the shadow of the songs

The birds embrace while dancing 'round the trees

To sow with notes their hops though knobbed throngs

And deck their plumes with buds of sailing breeze,

The branching pulse-that's where the blood belongs-

Wings decay through its delays, and flees

Toward the heights that nibble at the sun

Stooping on nouns the scales by erring spun.

 

8

Expressions wrest their compass through the  thrill

That hoists experiences on iris gales,

When the cascade of ice picks  kneads a shrill

On cusps that rim the kernel of the vales

Whence kites the cross that bids the welkin still:

The kestrel quaked by buoying bolts it tails,

Whose silhouette the cranny slides refines

For fancy to feel sheltered where it shines.

 

9

And as a sentence seek to emulate 

The sheets of light with sheathed syllables, 

So divers blots their circling emanate: 

The tapered dives, like th'eagles' parables,

Ring where the dragonfly's heels formulate

The gnats' last bursts in a braille of bubblès,

That trims with dappled throats the molten plates

Of rills inscribing the hills' motley slates.

 

10

With wedging whispers, the wraps of the slow

Downward churning coils, shed snowy splinters

Of summer's embers bedded with the flow

The waterfront sublimes on bathing boulders,

Removing from the duller earth the glow

Of quickening delight that brims what shoulders

The thawed tiara of the wrinkling mire

Bows to feed the fields with tempered fire.

 

11

The thirsty meadows, with replenished stems,

Swell the liquid chinks on bristled mantles,

Where pillars beaded by the brightest gems

Deploy the petellad vaults in which cradles

The butterfly, whose wings of light-stain'd hems

Ray the coy rinds with shimmering enamels,

That spiral the cathedral of th' angelic

Choir of the flowers in their spousal antic.

 

12

Then onward, conquering the summit posed

Above the satin threads of the pied stirs,   

That string the shades by waves and flights deposed

In a chromatic spout of harping spurs

By the black seat of silent arks enclosed,

Where the spider' scything pitch, with shuttled slurs,

An arpeggio on angling pinches plays

Freeing from glutted veins their trembling sways;

 

13

For voyages that have imaged an end

To the wafting throes that in their tardiness

Did heft the altitudes from where descend

The blustering surge that cleft drowsiness,

Must spring up from the throbbing tugs and fend

The waters with words that rive weariness,

To truss in a deluge of thundered bends

The thrusts that brood the torrent's thinning ends.