Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
We stood together
in an open field;
Above our heads
two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at east and courting full in view:—
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
Down-swooping, and
a ravenous hawk revealed;
Too weak to fight,
too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
Their snow-white
plumage flecked with crimson drops,
I wept, and
thought I turned towards you to weep:
But you were gone;
while rustling hedgerow tops
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
Of far-off
piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.
Bernstein House, 1978, Washington - Architecte Arthur Cotton Moore