[The New Nonsense]

From Sonnets from the Patagonian by American decadent Donald Evans (1884-1921)

BUVEUSE D"ABSINTHE
Rue d'Aphrodite


Her voice was fleet-limbed and immaculate,
And like peach blossoms blown across the wind
Her white words made the hour seem cool and kind,
Hung with soft dawns that danced a shadow fete.
A silken silence crept up from the South,
The flutes were hushed that mimed the orange moon,
And down the willow stream my sighs were strewn,
While I knelt to the corners of her mouth.

Lead me afar from clamorous dissonance,
For I am sick of empty trumpetings,
Choking the highways with a dusty noise.
Here I have found her sweet sheer utterance,
And now I seek the garden of the wings
Where I may bathe in sounds that life destroys.