So you have swept me back,

I who have walked with the live souls

above the earth,

I who have slept among the live flowers

at last;

so for your arrogance

and your ruthlessness

I am swept back

where dead lichens drip

dead cinders upon moss of ash;

so for your arrogance

I am broken at last,

I who had lived unconscious,

who was almost forgot;

if you had let me wait

I had grown from listlessness into peace,

if you had let me rest with the dead,

I had forgot you

and the past.

II

Here only flame upon flame

and black among the red sparks,

streaks of black and light

grown colorless

why did you turn back,

that hell should be reinhabited

of myself thus

swept into nothingness?

why did you turn back?

why did you glance back?

why did you hesitate for that moment?

why did you bend your face

caught with the flame of the upper earth,

above my face?

what was it that crossed my face

with the light from yours

and your glance?

what was it you saw in my face?

the light of your own face,

the fire of your own presence?

what had my face to offer

but reflex of the earth,

hyacinth color

caught from the raw fissure in the rock

where the light struck,

and the color of azure crocuses,

and the bright surface of gold crocuses

and of the wind-flower,

swift in its veins as lightning

and as white.

III

Saffron from the fringe of the earth,

wild saffron that has bent

over the sharp edge of earth,

all the flowers that cut through the earth,

all, all the flowers are lost;

everything is lost,

everything is crossed with black,

black upon black

and worse than black,

this colourless light.

IV

Fringe upon fringe

of blue crocuses,

crocuses, walled against blue of themselves,

blue of that upper earth.

blue of the depth upon depth of flowers,

lost;

flowers, if I could have taken once my breath of them,

enough of them,

more than earth,

even than of the upper earth,

had passed with me

beneath the earth;

If I could have caught up from the earth,

the whole of the flowers of the earth,

if once I could have breathed into myself

the very golden crocuses

and the red

and the very golden hearts of the first saffron,

the whole of the golden mass,

the whole of the great fragrance,

I could have dared the loss.