LIV LETHE
Reading edition
Ere we shall touch the jasper parapet, That God has set About His garden and the sea of glass, Shall we first pass Through some calm stream of soft forgetfulness And wash our hapless little joys away? And shall our souls in infant nakedness Emerge to bathe in God’s eternal day?
Shall we forget the garden roundelays Of piping Mays, When thrushes sang around the dewy lawns In roseleaf dawns, And tulips—purple, saffron, red and white,— Below the shade of box and fragrant bay, Would lift to heaven their well-poised heads, as bright As ever bloomed in Shiraz or Cathay?
Shall we forget the music of the sea, The virgin glee Which swayed beneath her robes dyed emerald, And so enthralled The vernal sun that he would downward shower More silver on her violet crystal fringe Than ever Sultan made his daughter’s dower Or locked in Istamboul with key and hinge?
Shall we forget our hearts did ever ache And slowly break, Because a dream by lightning truth was rent, Or we had spent A love too deep for one whole life to speak To gain a joy which proved too light to stay, As quickly fading as the tulip’s cheek, As fickle as the sea in witching May?