Paradise Without Exile

Darkness! Darkness! Perhaps it was not, but I saw it was dark I saw I was alone I was standing before an oak door I had never seen but I knew it was familiar. The door opened it was you standing in the doorway your eyes were laughing your voice clear: come! you said, you went, I behind you spellbound, I set off. There was no chain on my foot there was no chain on your foot you walked without your knees trembling without dread of hidden ominous events. The pool in your courtyard, shaped like a blue lotus, was full: of the shining clearness of water moonlight shone on everything the whole courtyard was silver the joyful murmur of the fountain mingled with the voices of unseen crickets the moonlight wound into the ripples of the pool wave and moonlight of night rolled together as a pair in the blue the deep blue. The stem of the tuberose slid over the low hedge of the courtyard, at the foot of the fig tree. You went up a few steps the ceiling of the house was wooden the walls, the windows, all were wooden you went into my room – unfamiliar – yes, unfamiliar! but it was our room. The windows were open without curtains to the scent of night as always, it seemed. I had never seen that place but I knew I had always been there. I cried out: home! home! this is our home it is not a prison. It is no longer a prison. You stopped, turned, gazed at my weeping face. Your eyes were shining, they were laughing with pure joy. My tears in torrents washed my dark face I was laughing with joy pure joy. Moonlight forest air the scent of tuberose the joyful murmur of water the smell of fig leaves. Like the wave with the moonlight, in the heart of the deep blue I drowned with you, I will remain drowned forever, in our hidden house with pure joy without prison...