Cascade

Lovers may find similitudes
To that sweet babbling girlish noise
In the inhuman crystal voice
That calls from mountain solitudes.

As that's but movement overlaid
With water, a faint shining thought,
Spirit is to music wrought
In the swift passion of a maid.

It is her body sings so clear,
Chanting in the woods of night;
On Earth's dark precipice a white
Prometheus, bound like water here.

The winged joys towards their task
From dusky veins beat up in flocks,
But still her curious patience mocks
The consummation lovers ask.

Lying on ferns she seems to wear
(The silver tissue of the skin
Radiant with the fire within)
Light as her weed and shade for hair.

Wrapt in communion so intense
The nicer senses fail and she,
Sweet Phoenix, burns on Pain's rich tree,
Joyful in her own frankincense.

The iron beaks that seek her flesh
Vex more her lover's quiet minds,
In whose dim glades the hunter finds
His own torn spirit in his mesh.