Chapter XII

Those clear welcoming flowers along the wall's extent
Will be no longer waiting for us at our return;
The silken waters that prolonged till they were spent,
Under a pure sweet sky no longer reach and yearn.

Of our melancholy plains the flying birds are shy;
Over the marshes pale mists begin to crawl;
Autumn, winter! Winter, autumn!--oh the cry!
In the forest do you hear the dead wood fall?

Our garden is no longer bridegroom of the light,
Where once we saw the phlox in glorious surge and flare;
Gladioli, in dust, once violent, upright,
Lingeringly have lain them down to perish there.

All is without strength or beauty, without fire,
Fleeing and quailing and crumbling and passing sadly by;
Oh, turn on me your eyes of light, for I desire
There to seek a comer of our early sky!

It is there alone our light may still abide,
The light that filled the garden once for you and me,
Long ago, when our lily lifted its white pride
And hollyhocks were an ascending ardency.