Dirge for Aoine and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The sunflower bows upon her breast
Her golden head, and goes to rest
Forgetting all the days that were
When she was young and proud and fair
And in the glowing August air
Bees came and sought and found her sweet.
Now earth is cold about her feet,
And wasps forsake her, and the sun
No longer seeks her for the one
Flower in his splendid image made.
Her beauty's done, her farewell said.
Her large leaves fold in weary wise,
And heavy are her great brown eyes.
The living rubies that would run
Across her discs that mocked the sun—
The ladybirds—sleep everyone.
The great stalk stoops towards the earth
Where all dreams end, whence all have birth.
The hive-bee has forgotten quite
How once he loved her, for the night
Has come wherein no bee can spy
Sweet in this flower dead and dry.