THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE

HERE, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbor,
And far from eye on ear
Wan waves and wet winds labor,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,

And no such things grow here

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes,
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
'They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated

Comes out of darkness morn. Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell, Nor wake with wings in heaven, Nor weep for pains in hell; Though one were fair as roses, His beauty clouds and closes; And well though love reposes, In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

Who gathers all things mortal

With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,

She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow

And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,

The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither, And all disastrous things; Dead dreams of days forsaken

The night shakes them round me in legions,

Dawn drives them before her like dreams:

Time sheds them like snows on strange regions,

Swept shoreward on infinite streams; Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy,

Dead fruits of the fugitive years; Some stained as with wine and made bloody,

And some as with tears.

Some scattered in seven years' traces, As they fell from the boy that was then;

Long left among idle green places,

Or gathered but now among men; On seas full of wonder and peril, Blown white round the capes of the north;

Or in islands where myrtles are sterile
And loves bring not forth.

O daughters of dreams and of stories
That life is not wearied of yet,
Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores,

Félise and Yolande and Juliette, Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you,

When sleep, that is true or that seems, Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, O daughters of dreams?

They are past as a slumber that passes,
As the dew of a dawn of old time;
More frail than the shadows on glasses,
More fleet than a wave or a rhyme.
As the waves after ebb drawing sea-
ward,

When their hollows are full of the
night,

So the birds that flew singing to meward

Recede out of sight.

The songs of dead seasons, that wander
On wings of articulate words;
Lost leaves that the shore-wind may
squander,

Light flocks of untameable birds; Some sang to me dreaming in class time

And truant in hand as in tongue; For the youngest were born of boy's pastime,

The eldest are young.

Is there shelter while life in them

lingers,

Is there hearing for songs that recede,

Tunes touched from a harp with men's fingers,

Or blown with boy's mouth in a reed! Is there place in the land of your labor, Is there room in your world of delight,

Where change has not sorrow for neighbor

And day has not night?

In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers,

Will you spare not a space for them there

Made green with the running of rivers
And gracious with temperate air;
In the fields and the turreted cities
That cover from sunshine and rain
Fair passions and bountiful pities
And loves without stain?

In a land of clear colors and stories,
In a region of shadowless hours,
Where earth has a garment of glories
And a murmur of musical flowers;
In woods where the spring half un-

Covers

The flush of her amorous face,
By the waters that listen for lovers,
For these is there place?

For the song-birds of sorrow, that muffle

Their music as clouds do their fire: For the storm-birds of passion, that ruffle

Wild wings in a wind of desire; In the stream of the storm as it settles Blown seaward, borne far from the

sun,

Shaken loose on the darkness like petals Dropped one after one?

Though the world of your hands be more

gracious

And lovelier in lordship of things Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious

Warm heaven of her imminent wings, Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,

For the love of old loves and lost

times;

And receive in your palace of painting
This revel of rhymes.

Though the seasons of man full of losses
Make empty the years full of youth,
If but one thing be constant in crosses,
Change lays not her hand upon truth;