Song

You are as gold

as the half-ripe grain

that merges to gold again,

as white as the white rain

that beats through

the half-opened flowers

of the great flower tufts

thick on the black limbs

of an Illyrian apple bough.

Can honey distill such fragrance

as your bright hair—

for your face is as fair as rain,

yet as rain that lies clear

on white honey-comb,

lends radiance to the white wax,

so your hair on your brow

casts light for a shadow.