Passion's Hour
By George Sterling
To-day the flesh contemns the craven mind
And reveals like a tiger in the sun;
I drink the noon's elixir, and am one
With fauns that seek the Oreads, as I find
A passionate compulsion in the wind,
Upon whose path the cloudland chariots run
To some remote and airy Avalon,
Where Joy is crowned, nor any nymph unkind.
To-day the tender mystery of thy soul
Seems half-forgot, nor utterly my goal:
I crave thy lips, I crave the flame thereof—
Mad for that hour of ecstasy and fire
In which the deathless pinions of Desire
Are shadows on the semi-swoon of love.
Written in Carmel.