---

Amy Lowell - In Excelsis
Work rating: Low

You — you — 
Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver; 
Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies; 
Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air.

The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun; 
It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path.

As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning. 
Young horses are not more sudden than your thoughts, 
Your words are bees about a pear-tree, 
Your fancies are the gold-and-black striped wasps buzzing among red apples. 
I drink your lips, 
I eat the whiteness of your hands and feet. 
My mouth is open, 
As a new jar I am empty and open. 
Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth, 
Like a brook of water thronged with lilies.

You are frozen as the clouds, 
You are far and sweet as the high clouds. 
I dare to reach to you, 
I dare to touch the rim of your brightness. 
I leap beyond the winds, 
I cry and shout, 
For my throat is keen as is a sword 
Sharpened on a hone of ivory. 
My throat sings the joy of my eyes, 
The rushing gladness of my love.

How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart? 
How have I snared the seas to lie in my fingers 
And caught the sky to be a cover for my head? How have you come to dwell with me, 
Compassing me with the four circles of your mystic lightness, 
So that I say "Glory! Glory!" and bow before you 
As to a shrine?

Do I tease myself that morning is morning and a day after? 
Do I think the air is a condescension, 
The earth a politeness, 
Heaven a boon deserving thanks? 
So you — air — earth — heaven — 
I do not thank you, 
I take you, 
I live. 
And those things which I say in consequence 
Are rubies mortised in a gate of stone.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.