Quest

All beneath a wintering sky, Follow the wastrel butterfly; With vermilion leaf or bronze— Tatters of gorgeous gonfalons— With the winds that always hold Echo of clarions lost and old— We must hasten, hasten on Toward the azure world withdrawn, We must wander, wander so Where the ruining roses go; Where the poplar's pallid leaves Drift among the gathered sheaves In that harvest none shall glean; Where the twisted willows lean In their strange, tormented woe, Seeing, on the streamlet's flow, Half their fragile leaves depart; Where the secret pines at heart, High, funereal, vespertine, Guard eternal sorrows green:— We shall follow, we shall find Haply, ere the light is blind, The moulded place where Beauty lay, Moon-beheld until the day, In the woven windlestrae; Or the pool of tourmaline, Rimmed with golden reeds, that was In the dawn a tiring-glass For her undelaying mien. Ever wander, wander so, Where the ruining roses go; All beneath a wintering sky, Follow the wastrel butterfly.