Hyde Park At Night, Before The War

Clerks.     We have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night     Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light.     Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces come aflower     To the night that takes us willing, liberates us to the hour.     Now at last the ink and dudgeon passes from our fervent eyes     And out of the chambered weariness wanders a spirit abroad on its enterprise.         Not too near and not too far         Out of the stress of the crowd         Music screams as elephants scream         When they lift their trunks and scream aloud         For joy of the night when masters are          Asleep and adream.         So here I hide in the Shalimar         With a wanton princess slender and proud,         And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem         Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud         Of golden dust, with star after star          On our stream.