Part 2 — THE GARDEN OF SHADOW
Reading edition
Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.
O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit! Can famine be so nigh to harvesting? Love, that was songful, with a broken lute In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.
Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers, And all thy garden change and glow with spring: Love is grown blind with no more count of hours Nor part in seed-time nor in harvesting.
Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]