Bellefontaine Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Midnight passes against me,
And Sara Teasdale sighs,
Her lips have touched the gloom again,
And the fairies of her eyes have dowsed their
Wings under the blankets of a breathless poem,

And on the street it snows a mile
Wide, but for the first time the lamplights
Glow, the new inventions an epiphany,
And she is but a child again, in the
Carriage slow,
And for once her soul should laugh
As it carries through the snow,

And though I should never look upon her
As her husband or lover so long before,
I might struggle into the ink-stained river which
Poured from out her door,
And lips so red that they made a garden of roses pale,
And mind so sharp that it made a phalanx of legionaries
Seem dull,

Though her throat be sunk in a graveyard,
And her luxuries given to wanton’s whim,
Her beauty is the endless ocean,
All lovers must baptize in.

Here she rests, I can see her now,
For her passions have blazed away the night,
And Chanticleer is crowing, and the thieves should
Run in fright,
And though my eyes should close, and my body become
So calm,
I can still hear her singing to me the melodies of
Her sweet psalm.

A religion of a subtler grace, and a chorus
Which burns and sings like coals,
And as the winters harshness approaches,
Like waves leaping the hoary shoals,
To her singing I should cling to, like an affixed beam,
For there is the perfect avenue, the ever flowing stream.