You’ll never understand the love for you I feel,
long-slumbering boy, as on my breast you lie.
I’ll hide you while I weep. The lynch-mob in full cry
has voices harsh as violating steel.
Mob rule provokes the stars to tremble and my flesh to quake.
Its rage is with us in the room. It hurts me in the chest.
Bird in my hand, with shouts and threats they’ve tracked us to our nest.
The wings of your proud spirit will be bitten when you wake.
They’re out there, through the window, jostling in Gethsemane.
Your body and my torment are the sights they’ve come to see.
They ride white horses with green manes.
Sleep on, beloved. Do you hear? My blood maintains
a kind of broken rhythm underneath rough music from the violins.
They lie in wait, the violators. Soon the agony begins.