We walk together. Sleep

gently laps at our feet;

and everything is displaced by wan

harsh renunciations.

We walk together. Dead

souls, who, like us,

crossed for love,

appear in stiff shrouds

with sick opal footsteps

and undulate within us.

My love, we go to the fragile

edge of a mound of earth.

A wing passes anointed in oil

and in purity. But a blow,

falling I know not where,

sharpens each tear into

a hostile tooth.

And a soldier, a great soldier,

wounds for epaulets,

cheered by the heroic evening,

displays at his feet, laughing,

like a hideous rag,

the brain of Life.

We walk together, closer together,

victorious Light, sick footstep;

together we pass the mustard-yellow

lilacs of a graveyard.