II · Section 4

II

The sounds torture me: I see them in my brain; They spin a flickering web of living threads, Like butterflies upon the garden beds, Nets of bright sound. I follow them: in vain. I must not brush the least dust from their wings: They die of a touch; but I must capture them, Or they will turn to a caressing flame, And lick my soul up with their flutterings.

The sounds torture me: I count them with my eyes, I feel them like a thirst between my lips; Is it my body or my soul that cries With little coloured mouths of sound, and drips In these bright drops that turn to butterflies Dying delicately at my finger tips?