Senlin, A Biography: Part 02: His Futile Preoccupations - 10

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence     I ascend my stairs once more,     While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,     Crash on a white sand shore.     It is moonlight. The garden is silent.     I stand in my room alone.     Across my wall, from the far-off moon,     A rain of fire is thrown . . .     There are houses hanging above the stars,     And stars hung under a sea:     And a wind from the long blue vault of time     Waves my curtain for me . . .     I wait in the dark once more,     Swung between space and space:     Before my mirror I lift my hands     And face my remembered face.     Is it I who stand in a question here,     Asking to know my name? . . .     It is I, yet I know not whither I go,     Nor why, nor whence I came.     It is I, who awoke at dawn     And arose and descended the stair,     Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,     In a womans hands and hair.     It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones     I builded into a wall:     With a mournful melody in my brain     Of a tune I cannot recall . . .     There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss;     And the sharp-pained shadow of death.     I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,     A wind like a fragrant breath . . .     And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven;     And the heavens are dark and steep . . .     I will forget these things once more     In the silence of sleep.