Purple as the innermost Core of a sinking flame, Deep in the leaves the violets smoulder To the dust whence they came.
Day after day At spring's return, I watch my flowers, how they burn Their lives away, Day after day ...
Fine as the dust of plumy fountains blowing Across the lanterns of a revelling night, The tiny leaves of April's earliest growing Powder the trees--so vaporously light, They seem to float, billows of emerald foam Blown by the South on its bright airy tide, Seeming less trees than things beatified, Come from the world of thought which was their home.
For a while only. Rooted strong and fast, Soon will they lift towards the summer sky Their mountain-mass of clotted greenery. Their immaterial season quickly past, They grow opaque, and therefore needs must die, Since every earth to earth returns at last.
In the middle of countries, far from hills and sea, Are the little places one passes by in trains And never stops at; where the skies extend Uninterrupted, and the level plains Stretch green and yellow and green without an end. And behind the glass of their Grand Express Folk yawn away a province through, With nothing to think of, nothing to do, Nothing even to look at--never a "view" In this damned wilderness. But I look out of the window and find Much to satisfy the mind. Mark how the furrows, formed and wheeled In a motion orderly and staid, Sweep, as we pass, across the field Like a drilled army on parade. And here's a market-garden, barred With stripe on stripe of varied greens ... Bright potatoes, flower starred, And the opacous colour of beans. Each line deliberately swings Towards me, till I see a straight Green avenue to the heart of things, The glimpse of a sudden opened gate Piercing the adverse walls of fate ... A moment only, and then, fast, fast, The gate swings to, the avenue closes; Fate laughs, and once more interposes Its barriers. The train has passed.
Noonday upon the Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent are and bright. It seems a glory that nought surpasses-- Passion of angels in form and hue-- When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses Leaps a lightning of sudden blue. Dimming the sun-drunk petals, Bright even unto pain, The grasshopper flashes, settles, And then is quenched again.
