The other was more sensitive,
More quieting and loving-kind,
With greater will to love and live
Than I ever had hoped to find.

For with her grace of tenderness
A violence of love she had:
In a peplos of loveliness
Was hid a Mænad passion mad….

To her bosom she took my dream,
Fondled it there, and gave it death....
My dream a suckling child did seem,
Dead lacking light, dead lacking faith....

Youth, treasure only gods may keep,
Wilted in me forever now!
I cannot, when I wish to, weep,
And often cry I know not how….

Another fancied my lips were
A casket wrought to hold her love;
And wildly with the teeth of her
To gnaw my very heart she strove.

She willed all passionate excess;
She was a flame of love for me;
She made each ardorous caress
Synthesis of eternity.