Shook one white petal from the perfect flower,
And all the world grew old. Ah, who shall say
When Summer dies, or when is blown the rose?
Who, who shall know just when the quiet star
Out of the golden West is born again?
Or when the gloaming saddens into night?
’Twas writ, in truth, of old; the tide of love
Has met its turn, the long horizon lures
The homing bird, the harbour calls the sail.
Home, home to your glad heart she goes, while I
Fare on alone, and only broken dreams
Abide with me! And yet, when you shall tread
Lightly your sunlit hills with her and breathe
Life’s keener air, all but too exquisite,
Or look through purpling twilight on the world,
Think not my heart has followed nevermore
Those glimmering feet that walked once thus with me,
Nor dream my passion by your passion paled.
But lower than the god the temple stands;
As deeper is the sea than any wave,
Sweeter the summer than its asphodel,
So love far stronger than this woman is.
She from the untiring ocean took her birth,
And from torn wave and foam her first faint breath;
Child of unrest and change, still through her sweeps
Her natal sea’s tumultuous waywardness!
And losing her, lo, one thin drifting cloud
Curls idly from the altar in that grove
Where burn the fires that know not change or death!
5
