Kyrenaikos

Alan Seeger

Lay me where soft Cyrene rambles down

In grove and garden to the sapphire sea;

Twine yellow roses for the drinker’s crown;

Let music reach and fair heads circle me,

Watching blue ocean where the white sails steer

Fruit-laden forth or with the wares and news

Of merchant cities seek our harbors here,

Careless how Corinth fares, how Syracuse;

But here, with love and sleep in her caress,

Warm night shall sink and utterly persuade

The gentle doctrine Aristippus bare, —

Night-winds, and one whose white youth’s loveliness,

In a flowered balcony beside me laid,

Dreams, with the starlight on her fragrant hair.