Jealousy!

She passed in the light of the moon as a sail passes on a river,
And she swayed... the star yearned toward her... and the stone broke into a smile,
The apple and the pomegranate whispered together... and the blossoms trembled,
And the bands of pines gathered, calling out to the trees:
What is her figure worth?... when ours are figures suffused with pearls?
And the valley turned its face upward, asking: what is the news?
Can the mountains be calling to one another... the gardens deep in evening talk?
Or has sleeplessness set that white village swaying?

★

Then she passed on... as one of the thoughts flashes into a poet's mind,
O flutter of the little path... O following of the downward slope,
And the far star went mad with love... and the moon's playground darkened,
And the bend of the road folded itself about the awaited meeting,
And there was I, with the shadow, in the confiding of a rustle, on my guard,
My eyes upon it full of visions, and its visions within me full of images,
And behold, my hands upon emptiness... no quiver and no trace,
And my love for it fixed upon bitter longing and the bitterer sigh,
And behold, over the horizons of the valley of night, the cackling laughter of fate,
And a distinct echo... as though longing had strangled upon a string.

Summer, 1952