IV
Within the Summer dawn I dreamed a dream
Of sand wastes where a strange procession came:
Men patriarchal, stern, robed in white flame,
Who knelt and lifted empty hands that seem
To plead for something, while with scorn supreme:
“Thy future years are we! Ask not our name!
We empty-handed come. Each one the same.”
I knew they reached the gray horizon’s gleam.
“Look! Look behind!”—I cried—“the cherubs there
Upholding each a wine glass, rich, flower-crowned,
Mirrored within whose radiant deeps is found
My love and I—immortal—earth-gods fair.
The future, stern, stern keepers, take! ’tis thine.
I care not, for that red rose past is mine!”