 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
UNSEASONABLE SUMMER.
SUDDEN Summer, soaring, pouring with heaped hands
Sun and splendour, warmth and worship, on the unaccustomed lands,
With thy blue and golden banners in the wonder-smitten skies
Heaven unsealing for the healing of our Winter-wearied eyes,
Sun and splendour, warmth and worship, on the unaccustomed lands,
With thy blue and golden banners in the wonder-smitten skies
Heaven unsealing for the healing of our Winter-wearied eyes,
104
Where hast thou abidden, hidden, since the Prime,
Leaving Life to pine and perish in the cold Cimmerian clime,
And now comest, late relenting, when October's on the scene,
As it were our yearning spurning for the bliss that might have been?
Leaving Life to pine and perish in the cold Cimmerian clime,
And now comest, late relenting, when October's on the scene,
As it were our yearning spurning for the bliss that might have been?
Now that fading leas are, trees are, day by day,
When the leaves are like to shrivel on the sap-forsaken spray,
And of all the choir that music in the woodlands wont to make,
Now the robin only, lonely, flutes and flutters in the brake,
When the leaves are like to shrivel on the sap-forsaken spray,
And of all the choir that music in the woodlands wont to make,
Now the robin only, lonely, flutes and flutters in the brake,
With thy sunshine mocking, shocking sense and sight,
As of morning rathe and rosy, in the mirk misborn of night,
Now the threadbare year thou takest unawares and putt'st to scorn,
As it's ready making, shaking off, for sleep, its wede outworn.
As of morning rathe and rosy, in the mirk misborn of night,
Now the threadbare year thou takest unawares and putt'st to scorn,
As it's ready making, shaking off, for sleep, its wede outworn.
At the time and season reason-set for thee,
When thy gold and purple pageants in the blue should blazoned be
And the rose should burn with blossom for the bridal world's rebirth,
Wrapped in rain-clouds frowning, drowning lay the sorrow-smitten earth.
When thy gold and purple pageants in the blue should blazoned be
And the rose should burn with blossom for the bridal world's rebirth,
Wrapped in rain-clouds frowning, drowning lay the sorrow-smitten earth.
How should roses bloom in gloom, in rain and cold?
How should landscapes without sunshine laugh and glow with harvest-gold?
Nay, the roses died, half-blossomed, and half-ripened, dropped the grain;
Life, in darkness groping, hoping for thy waking went in vain.
How should landscapes without sunshine laugh and glow with harvest-gold?
Nay, the roses died, half-blossomed, and half-ripened, dropped the grain;
Life, in darkness groping, hoping for thy waking went in vain.
105
Now thy warmth thou wastest, hastest but decay;
Now the dry leaves shrink and shrivel from thy timeless touch away
And the few late flowers that linger in the lonely garden-beds,
By thy sun unwanted daunted, hang their dull diminished heads.
Now the dry leaves shrink and shrivel from thy timeless touch away
And the few late flowers that linger in the lonely garden-beds,
By thy sun unwanted daunted, hang their dull diminished heads.
What mad God misruleth, fooleth Life like this,
On such strange sardonic fashion from the ultimate abyss
Rime and rain in June decreeing, summer in the year's decline,
Hail in harvest sending, blending poison still with living's wine?
On such strange sardonic fashion from the ultimate abyss
Rime and rain in June decreeing, summer in the year's decline,
Hail in harvest sending, blending poison still with living's wine?
Nay, meseems, evanished, banished are the Gods:
Jahveh, Allah, Zeus, have taken flight before Alecto's rods:
With Tisiphone have Angels, Muses, Graces ceased the strife:
Given to fiends and furies sure is all the governance of Life.
Jahveh, Allah, Zeus, have taken flight before Alecto's rods:
With Tisiphone have Angels, Muses, Graces ceased the strife:
Given to fiends and furies sure is all the governance of Life.
| Flower o' the thorn | |