V. The Cellar of the Soul

The anemone buds hold out to me their precious rubies; the daisies kiss me in the eyes and lips; and the cyclamens shake their powder in my hair. On the wall, the roses are nodding, smiling; above me the orange blossoms surrender themselves to the wooing breeze; and on yonder rock the salamander sits, complacent and serene. I take a daisy, and, boy as boys go, question its petals: Married man or monk, I ask, plucking them off one by one, And the last petal says, Monk. I perfume my fingers with crumpled cyclamens, cover my face with the dark-eyed anemones, and fall asleep. And my burro sleeps beneath the wall, in the shadow of nodding roses. And the blackbirds too are dozing, and the bulbuls flitting by whisper with their wings, ‘salaam.’ Peace and salaam! The bulbul, the blackbird, the salamander, the burro, and the burro-boy, are to each other shades of noonday sun: Happy, loving, generous, and free;⁠— As happy as each other, and as free. We do what we please in Nature’s realm, go where we please; No one’s offended, no one ever wronged. No sentinels hath Nature, no police. But lo, a goblin as I sleep comes forth;⁠— A goblin taller than the tallest poplar, who carries me upon his neck to the Park in far New York. Here women, light-heeled, heavy-haunched, pace up and down the flags in graceful gait.