Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/356

 The second, with low patient brows Bound under aspen-coloured boughs And eyes made strong and grave with sleep And yet too weak to weep—

The third, with eager mouth at ease Fed from late autumn honey, lees Of scarce gold left in latter cells With scattered flower-smells—

Hair sprinkled over with spoilt sweet Of ruined roses, wrists and feet Slight-swathed, as grassy-girdled sheaves Hold in stray poppy-leaves—

The fourth, with lips whereon has bled Some great pale fruit's slow colour, shed From the rank bitten husk whence drips Faint blood between her lips—

Made of the heat of whole great Junes Burning the blue dark round their moons (Each like a mown red marigold) So hard the flame keeps hold—

These are burnt thoroughly away. Only the first holds out a day Beyond these latter loves that were Made of mere heat and air.