An Epic of Women and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I wandered dreaming through a mead;
And it was sowing-season there;
As one who sows and takes no heed
I cast my dreams upon the air:
And each dream was a golden seed
That in my life some flower should bear.

—O sowing-season bright and gay,
To have you back I am most fain!
O sowing season find some way
To bring me here each golden grain
I cast upon the air that day,
That I may sow them all again.

172

For some, that fairest should have been,
About the world they have been tost
And borne no flowers that I have seen;
And some have taken wing and crost
The sea, or through the blue serene
Gone up to heaven and been lost.

O, sowing season, come once more,
Bring back each golden seed to me!
For one, indeed, grew up and bore
No flower of gladness, good to see—
A thing to look upon right sore
—A grief that in my life should be.

One other truly did beget
Some blossom of the June that fell
In May; and one, a violet
Whose death upon my heart doth dwell;
The last seed hath not blossomed yet:
Come back and bring this one as well.

173

—What! the whole sudden summer? Yea;
The last one hath come up a rose!
O sowing season, you may stay;
It is in my Love's heart it grows;
And she hath shown it me to-day:
I keep this one and give up those.