But the woods are full of voices and of shy and secret things The badger down by the brook-side, the flick of a woodcock's wings, The plump of a falling fir-cone, the pop of the sunripe pods, And the wind that sings in the pine-tops the song of the ancient gods-- The song of the wind that says the Romans made a road, And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode!
O Sister Nymphs, how shall we dance or sing Remembering What was and is not? How sing any more Now Aphrodite's rosy reign is o'er? For on the forest-floor Our feet fall wearily the summer long, The whole year long: No sudden goddess through the rushes glides, No eager God among the laurels hides; Jove's eagle mopes beside an empty throne, Persephone and Ades sit alone, By Lethe's hollow shore. And hear not any more Echoed from poplar-tree to poplar-tree, The voice of Orpheus making sweetest moan For lost Eurydice. The Fates walk all alone In empty kingdoms, where is none to fear Shaking of any spear. Even the ghosts are gone From lightless fields of mint and euphrasy: There sings no wind in any willow-tree, And shadowy flute-girls wander listlessly Down to the shore where Charon's empty boat, As shadowed swan doth float, Rides all as listlessly, with none to steer. A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about our woodland ways, bereft, The endless summertide. Queen Venus draws aside And passes, sighing, up Olympus' hill. And silence holds her Cyprian bowers, and claims Her flowers, and quenches all her altar-flames, And strikes dumb in their throats Her doves' complaining notes: And sorrow Sits crowned upon her seat: nor any morrow Hears the Loves laughing round her golden chair. (Alas, thy golden seat, thine empty seat!) Nor any evening sees beneath her feet The daisy rosier flush, the maidenhair And scentless crocus borrow From rose and hyacinth their savour sweet. Without thee is no sweetness in the morn, The morn that was fulfilled of mystery, It lies like a void shell, desiring thee, O daughter of the water and the dawn, Anadyomene! There is no gold upon the bearded corn, No blossom on the thorn; And in wet brakes the Oreads hide, forlorn Of every grace once theirs: no Faun will follow By herne or hollow Their feet in the windy morn.