this fabulous shadow only the sea keeps

Though I have touched her flesh of moons,

Still she sits gestureless and mute,

Drowning cool pearls in alcohol.

O blameless shyness; -- innocence dissolute!

She hazards jet; wears tiger-lilies;-

And bolts herself within a jewelled belt.

Too many palms have grazed her shoulders:

Surely she must have felt.

Ophelia had such eyes; but she

Even, sank in love and choked with flowers.

This burns and is not burnt. . . . My modern love were

Charred at a stake in younger times than ours.

 Harold Hart Crane  1917

American poet, born 1899, lost at sea 1932