Talk of the Heart — Childhood

Childhood

Oh, her radiance, swaying past with a supple figure!
Is she a butterfly, escaped from a field of lilies
on a spring forenoon?!
Her movements are the whisper of music
and her glances are weddings:
with colors they clamor,
with perfumes they ring,
and with dreaming visions she strolls, and crowns herself.

And she wonders, in vexation:
which ornamented dress shall she wear?
All of them are hitched up above the knees
and drawn tight at waist and arms,
and they have bewildered the little girl...

In the swift leaps of her age
toward a ripening youth,
she peers after it in absent, wandering gazes,
and in rich hair, the color of her eyes,
which she smooths with both her hands —
a single lock,
crowned by a red ribbon,
drinking from the loosened braids!

Oh, her radiance, my little one...
I have given my life to her. If only she would tell
what haunts that weary little head...
An obscure longing she cannot put into words,
or childish pretension, and playing grown-up?!