THE DEPARTURE OF PROSERPINE
Old mother Earth for me already grieves,
Her morns wake weeping and her noons are dim,
Silence has left her woods, and all the leaves
Dance in the windy shadows on the rim
Of the dull lake thro' which I soon shall pass
To my dark bridal bed
Down in the hollow chambers of the dead.
Will not the thunder hide me if I call,
Wrapt in the corner of some distant star
The gods have never known?
Alas! alas!
My voice has left with the last wing, my fall
Shall crush the flowery fields with gloom, as far
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