In taverns and winding side streets..

In taverns and winding side streets, 
In an electric daydream 
I sought the endlessly lovely, 
The eternally smitten with speech. 
The streets were drunk with screams. 
There were suns in the shining vitrines. 
The beauty of the women's faces! 
The proud gazes of the men! 
These were kings - not vagabonds! 
I asked an old man by the wall: 
"Did you decorate their delicate fingers 
With pearls of infinite worth? 
Did you give them these multicolored furs? 
Did you kindle them with shafts of light? 
Did you paint their crimson lips, 
The bluish arches of their brows?" 
But the old man did not reply, 
Following after the crowd to dream. 
I was left in mysterious radiance 
To drink in this sparkling music... 
And they just kept passing by, 
In her heart each concealing a vagueness, 
To fly off forever, incomparable, 
Into the blue beyond. 
Pair after pair flashed by... 
I awaited the bright angel's coming, 
When he, in the street's exultation, 
Would convey one of them to heaven.... 
While above us, out on a dangerous ledge - 
Nestled a dwarf, silently coiled, 
And the tongue that spread in the sky, 
Seemed a red banner to us.