Page:Collected poems vol 1 de la mare.djvu/33



HO beckons the green ivy up
 * Its solitary tower of stone?

What spirit lures the bindweed's cup Unfaltering on? Calls even the starry lichen to climb By agelong inches endless Time?

Who bids the hollyhock uplift
 * Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high;

Fling wide her petals — silent, swift, Lovely to the sky? Since as she kindled, so she will fade, Flower above flower in squalor laid.

Ever the heavy billow rears
 * All its sea-length in green, hushed wall;

But totters as the shore it nears, Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great water from its rest?

So creeps ambition on; so climb
 * Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high,

Forgets his birth, small space, brief time, That he shall die;