As Darkness seized the waning earth
A single Star adorn’d the shadowed air
Where once Artemis didst unfurl her mirth
And past mirage drowned with ancient prayer
Pensively it sat, and silently beseech’d
With such tender light, one final sight
Of the withering leaves, a soul so wretched,
The fading foliage; though suffer’d blight
Still clutching faithfully to the bitter claws
Of the hemlock fence. Gone wast the Thyme
When it singst with foreign birds at dawns
Hither a ruin’d chorus of wintry night
The blanch’d leaves, forlornly waved
To Boreas’ gentle touch. Long lost
Was the Dreams of Vine, so firmly held
To its dying days, with the dearest cost

The World was then an amorphous haze
Where sightless Muse bore shad’d light
A hidden Voice rang through the Maze
And Zephyrus’ breathe dawn’d the night
Then woke the earth to Proserpine’s embrace
And bath’d in the Lamp of Heaven’s sky
Pois’d upon an immemorial fence
A newborn plant. Its head held high
Buoyantly fresh; its youthful form
So full of grace, rest’d gently ‘round the spikes
Of the aged wood. Green were the leaves
That rous’d tender love. E’en Nox
Ador’d its wondrous life. It fed
On the sweetest rain and purist dew
And its beauty grew as the waxing Moon
By morn and eve its glamour anew’d

As Aestas brought ‘live the piacevole days
And the Mist of Tethys float’d ‘bove the air
Lush wast the beauty that grant’d hither ways
When the blooming earth was ne’er so fair
Elegant were the leaves with Winds didst dance
While birds of songs gather’d faithfully ‘round
The light dappled, sway’d by the trance
Yet the leaf tunes to a sorrow’d sound:
‘O to be like the air borne fowls!
To lift so high near the light of Heaven
Or like the light-wing’d moth that travels
To the land of Latmos, and the glorious Ocean
O to own thorns of Roses that drew
Love from the Moon! Them that give
The imperious might, that doom’d the weak
And fate the woe of all that may live!’
Thus was the Dream of the sighing leaves
And thus cherish’d its tender heart
Of life that soar far above the clouds
And of love whose pow’r none canst thwart

Ere long the World fad’d into brown
And lost wast the laughter and distant song
Fled where the larks that guard’d the crown
Of the silver Staff. Dim’d wast the strong
Scent of blooms. Ruin’d grey petals
Once flame or golden, drift’d to the ground
Where the rust’d thorns, the crawling Lethal
Twin’d with wast’d heather. Yet wound’d
The leaves might be, still higher it climb’d
Heavenwards. Though the poisonous fence
Cut through its vines; though its soft limbs
Dull’d by the frost; though all of its sense
And blood were drain. Still higher it went.
Yet slowly its life pal’d far away
While forgotten bells didst weep and bind
Only a twinkling heart, ‘neath Vesper’s dusk

Silently the air was fill’d with snow
That drift’d calmly over the Land
Where Ghosts of yore, with frozen woe
Whisper’d to the sable sand
While melt’d wings of blanch’d moths
Cover’d the ground. The wilting Thyme
Lethewards had sunk, and whose bitter wine
Willingly drunk. A far-away chime
Rang through the shadow’d air
As the fading leaves turn’d beyond grave
And the tears of Niobe fus’d with prayer
The Dream took slumber ‘neath shad’d wave
And gone wast the fence with a sorrow’d might
As a lone Star shone through a wintry night