Testament

Not that your hair is brown nor that your eyes Are as a winter sea at noon, grey-blue; Not that your brow is broad beyond surmise

Of sculptor, or your skin of honey hue.

Your hands which make my body wake and thrill— Dreaming their touch upon me-are enough

Reason for my entanglement; yet still

Desire's web is spun of subtler stuff.

These are not reasons why I love you-no. Your beauty sways me with its virile breath But I'm not captive to it for I know Perfection perishes with age and death. I find no reason why I love you as I do Saving that I am I and you are you.

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You are the sun of my desire, the wide

Surge of all seas, of moon-gold night the hush. Time waits for you on morning mountainside; For you the lark sings, and the drowsy thrush. The beauty carven garment of your limbsClear as a face upon a Roman coin-

Is wrought of flesh whose white translucence dims The azured arteries of thigh and groin.

Now be it said: when you are blowing dust, Your words to silence given and your eyes Closed on the world forever; when I must

Seek consolation in religious lies:

That heart was never moved as mine is moved To love a man as man was never loved.

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Oh make me not ashamed of this great love That is as natural as rain from heaven; A pulse that leaps the heart of time to move, Yeast in the sour bread of life a leaven. I give it to you gladly, asking naught

To bind you to a promise or a place.

My lips are not with consequences fraught. Age sets no traps cosmetic on my face.

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