Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/183



O tender first cold flush of rose, O budded dawn, wake dreamily; Your dim lips as your lids unclose Murmur your own sad threnody. O as the soft and frail lights break Upon your eyelids, and your eyes Wider and wider grow and wake, The old pale glory dies.

And then, as sleep lies down to sleep And all her dreams lie somewhere dead, The iron shepherd leads his sheep To pastures parched whose green is shed. Still, O frail dawn, still in your hair And your cold eyes and sad sweet lips, The ghosts of all the dreams are there, To fade like passing ships.