Poems (Jenkins)/Poppyfields

by Elinor Jenkins

Poppyfields

A WILDERNESS were better than this place
Where foregone seasons set a gentle spell
Decking it with such fair and tender grace
An angel might be pleased here to dwell;
Now all its gay delights are dismal grown
In the full glory of the summer time,
As from the horror of some evil thing
Its every grace had flown,—
Laid under penance for an unknown crime
The garden close lies sick and sorrowing.

Pale in the sultry splendour of the day
Each shoot a finger, stiffened wearily,
The harsh-leaved rosemary stands stark and grey
Pointing at that which none may ever see,
And darker grows the pansy's brooding face
With dark foreboding; and the lily's cup
Turns loathsome, festering sourly in the sun;
In the cypress's embrace
The valiant scented bay is swallowed up.
The roses all have withered, one by one.

Beyond the close, smothering the wholesome corn,
A flight of scarlet locusts fallen to earth
Baleful, and blighting all that they adorn,
The burnished heralds of a bitterer dearth,
Coral and flame and blood among the gold,
Like Eastern armies gorgeously dight
And raised by gramarye from English sod
With banners brave unrolled
Each silken tent enclosing dusky night,
Drowsy dream-laden poppies beck and nod.

Brighter than stains of that imperial hue
Spilled from the vats of sea-enthronèd Tyre,
Their flaunting ranks grow dull and blow anew
From smouldering rubies to fierce coals of fire,
As through the thunder-burdened air of noon
The slow clouds slowly drift and pass
Casting soft shifting shadows on the field.
Alas, and all too soon
The wearied eye 'gins ache for shaded grass
Though the charmed sense would to the glamour yield.

Now that love's rose has crumbled into dust.
And nought is left but sharp envenomed thorns,
Burning remorse with many a cruel thrust,
Bitter regret that unavailing mourns,
Now thought is fear and memory is pain
And hope a sickly pulse that will not cease,
And fame a gaping grave whereby we weep,
Nowhere now doth remain
A place of refuge for us, or release,
Save in the shadowy wastes of idle sleep.

Therefore, scorn not these flowers of phantasy
That blow about the ivory gate of dreams,
For though they have not truth or constancy
Yet very fair their idle semblance seems.
Though short the blest relief they bring to woe,
And wakening the worm 'gins gnaw again,
Yet comely truth is grown a grim death's head.
Fly the unconquerable foe;
Go, in an empty dream lost joys regain
And down among the poppies meet your dead.