Make we our offerings at Adonis' shrine, For this is Love's own resurrection day, Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred wine, And myrtle garlands on his altars lay: _O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline; Be thou propitious to this love of ours, And we, the summer long, shall bring thee flowers._
When all the world has gone awry, And I myself least favour find With my own self, and but to die And leave the whole sad coil behind, Seems but the one and only way; Should I but hear some water falling Through woodland veils in early May, And small bird unto small bird calling-- O then my heart is glad as they.
Lifted my load of cares, and fled My ghosts of weakness and despair, And, unafraid, I raise my head And Life to do its utmost dare; Then if in its accustomed place One flower I should chance find blowing, With lovely resurrected face From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing-- I laugh to think of my disgrace.
A simple brook, a simple flower, A simple wood in green array,-- What, Nature, thy mysterious power To bind and heal our mortal clay? What mystic surgery is thine, Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding, That even so sad a heart as mine Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding?-- Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.
I think we are not otherwise Than all the children of thy knee; For so each furred and winged one flies, Wounded, to lay its heart on thee; And, strangely nearer to thy breast, Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing, Asking but there awhile to rest, With wisdom beyond our revealing-- Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.
The human heart will never change, The human dream will still go on, The enchanted earth be ever strange With moonlight and the morning sun, And still the seas shall shout for joy, And swing the stars as in a glass, The girl be angel for the boy, The lad be hero for the lass.
The fashions of our mortal brains New names for dead men's thoughts shall give, But we find not for all our pains Why 'tis so wonderful to live; The beauty of a meadow-flower Shall make a mock of all our skill, And God, upon his lonely tower Shall keep his secret--secret still.
The old magician of the skies, With coloured and sweet-smelling things, Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes, Still onward through a million springs; And nothing old and nothing new Into the magic world be born, Yea! nothing older than the dew, And nothing younger than the morn.