Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/326

 May-blossom and proud sweet bay-flower, What, for shame, would you have with us here? It is not the month of the May-flower This, but the fall of the year.

Flowers open only their lips in derision, Leaves are as fingers that point in scorn: The shows we see are a vision; Spring is not verily born.

Yet boughs turn supple and buds grow sappy, As though the sun were indeed the sun: And all our woods are happy With all their birds save one.

But spring is over, but summer is over, But autumn is over, and winter stands With his feet sunk deep in the clover And cowslips cold in his hands.

His hoar grim head has a hawthorn bonnet, His gnarled gaunt hand has a gay green staff With new-blown rose-blossom on it: But his laugh is a dead man's laugh.