TO MERCEDES ON THE WING
Elegy for a child

A violet of icy light
tensed on the rocky pinnacle,
your voice that has no throat but night
is heard in nothing and in all.

Your thoughts are snows, that drift to be
in endless radiance of white:
your face a flame for ever bright,
your heart a turtle-dove set free.

Sing through the unchained air, and sound
the morning song, the fragrant-tuned,
mountain of light and lily-wound.

By day and night all we beneath
shall walk on sorrow's crooked path
and weave a melancholy wreath.