Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.
O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit!
Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.
Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
Love is grown blind with no more count of hours
Nor part in seed-time nor in harvesting.
Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]
THE CALL
Love comes laughing up the valleys,
Hand in hand with hoyden Spring;
All the Flower-People nodding,
All the Feathered-Folk a-wing.
"Higher! Higher!" call the thrushes;
"Wilder! Freer!" breathe the trees;
And the purple mountains beckon
Upward to their mysteries.
Always farther leagues to wander,
Peak to peak and slope to slope;
Lips to sing and feet to follow,
Eyes to dream and heart to hope!
Tarry? Nay, but who can tarry?
All the world is on the wing;
Love comes laughing up the valleys,
Hand in hand with hoyden Spring.