Jasper’s Song

WHO goes down through the slim green sallows, Soon, so soon ? Dawn is hard on the heels of the moon, But never a lily the day-star knows Is white, so white as the one who goes Armed and shod, when the hyacinths darken. Then hark, O harken ! And rouse the moths from the deep rose-mallows, Call the wild hares down from the fallows, Gather the silk of the young sea-poppies, The bloom of the thistle, the bells of the foam; Bind them all with a brown owl's feather, Snare the winds in a golden tether, Chase the clouds from the gipsy's weather, and follow, O follow, the white spring home. Who goes past with the wind that chilled us, Late, so late ? Fortune leans on the farmer's gate, Watching the round sun low in the south, With a plume in his cap and a rose at his mouth. But O, for the folk who were free and merry There's never so much as a red rose-berry. But old earth's warm as the wine that filled us, And the fox and the little gray mouse skull build us Walls of the sweet green gloom of the cedar, A roof of bracken, a curtain of whin; One more rouse ere the bowl reposes Low in the dust of our lost red roses, One more song ere the cold night closes, and welcome, O welcome the dark death in !