The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

ROSA IGNOTA And I am in despair of Thee and Time. Weeping the trees, and all the streams grown sullen, Under the lowering skies and the bitter blasts— There is no living thing in the temple of Summer, And the ashes of spring lie cold on the hearth of day. Gray dreams again! And all my hope is fled. Gray dreams! gray dreams! and the day is tired and dead. The bitter aftermath of summer brings Time’s memory back to the world: there are no stings In the world’s pain, but only bitterness Of the memory of Time; no sore distress, Save for the thought of Summer waned and dead, And faded with the gold skies overhead, And the young green beneath; ah! secret Rose! Here from the heart of the woods I pluck thee forth, Fragrant with the smell of summer, crimson-bright! And, for the world under the stars to-night, It shall be thine, and thine the star that draws The world to worship thee: the days are faded Under the heavens ; there is no more sun, And no more love. The world is hushed and dead. Slim-passing dryads through the lonely woods, I will follow ye in the paths of dank decay; Decadent Autumn, with thy lonely broods Of active gnomes and little red-capped fays, That feasted in the summer under the trees Now dripping with Autumn rains—ah ! take me too, Me too into the silence of the past, x M 177