Richard Aldington

The ancient songs Pass deathward mournfully. Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths, Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings— Symbols of ancient songs Mournfully passing Down to the great white surges, Watched of none         - - Save the frail sea-birds And the lithe pale girls, Daughters of Okeanos. And the songs pass From the green land Which lies upon the waves as a leaf On the flowers of hyacinth; And they pass from the waters, The manifold winds and the dim moon, And they come, Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk, To the quiet level lands That she keeps for us all, That she wrought for us all for sleep In the silver days of the earth's dawning— Proserpine, daughter of Zeus. And we turn from the Kuprian's breasts, And we turn from thee, Phoibos Apollon, And we turn from the music of old And the hills that we loved and the meads, And we turn from the fiery day, And the lips that were over-sweet; For silently Brushing the fields with red-shod feet, With purple robe Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame, Death, Thou hast come upon us. And of all the ancient songs Passing to the swallow-blue halls By the dark streams of Persephone, This only remains: That in the end we turn to thee, Death, That we turn to thee, singing One last song. O Death, Thou art an healing wind That blowest over white flowers A-tremble with dew; Thou art a wind flowing Over long leagues of lonely sea; Thou art the dusk and the fragrance; Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling; Thou art the pale peace of one Satiate with old desires; Thou art the silence of beauty, And we look no more for the morning; We yearn no more for the sun, Since with thy white hands, Death, Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets, The slim colorless poppies Which in thy garden alone Softly thou gatherest. And silently; And with slow feet approaching; And with bowed head and unlit eyes, We kneel before thee: And thou, leaning towards us, Caressingly layest upon us Flowers from thy thin cold hands, And, smiling as a chaste woman Knowing love in her heart, Thou sealest our eyes And the illimitable quietude Comes gently upon us.

Pótuia, pótuia White grave goddess, Pity my sadness, O silence of Paros. I am not of these about thy feet, These garments and decorum; I am thy brother, Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee, And thou hearest me not. I have whispered thee in thy solitudes Of our loves in Phrygia, The far ecstasy of burning noons When the fragile pipes Ceased in the cypress shade, And the brown fingers of the shepherd Moved over slim shoulders; And only the cicada sang. I have told thee of the hills And the lisp of reeds And the sun upon thy breasts, And thou hearest me not, Pótuia, pótuia Thou hearest me not.

Women’s tears are but water; The tears of men are blood. He sits alone in the firelight And on either side drifts by Sleep, like a torrent whirling, Profound, wrinkled and dumb. Circuitously, stealthily, Dawn occupies the city; As if the seasons knew of his grief Spring has suddenly changed into snow Disaster and sorrow Have made him their pet; He cannot escape their accursed embraces. For all his dodgings Memory will lacerate him. What good does it do to wander Nights hours through city streets? Only that in poor places He can be with common men And receive their unspoken Instinctive sympathy. What has life done for him? He stands alone in the darkness Like a sentry never relieved, Looking over a barren space, Awaiting the tardy finish.

I have sat here happy in the gardens, Watching the still pool and the reeds And the dark clouds Which the wind of the upper air Tore like the green leafy boughs Of the divers-hued trees of late summer; But though I greatly delight In these and the water-lilies, That which sets me nighest to weeping Is the rose and white color of the smooth flag-stones, And the pale yellow grasses Among them.