The Year Of The Rose

From the depths of the green garden-closes     Where the summer in darkness dozes     Till autumn pluck from his hand     An hour-glass that holds not a sand;     From the maze that a flower-belt encloses     To the stones and sea-grass on the strand     How red was the reign of the roses     Over the rose-crowned land!     The year of the rose is brief;     From the first blade blown to the sheaf,     From the thin green leaf to the gold,     It has time to be sweet and grow old,     To triumph and leave not a leaf     For witness in winters sight     How lovers once in the light     Would mix their breath with its breath,     And its spirit was quenched not of night,     As love is subdued not of death.     In the red-rose land not a mile     Of the meadows from stile to stile,     Of the valleys from stream to stream,     But the air was a long sweet dream     And the earth was a sweet wide smile     Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned     From the sea which had borne her and burned,     That with one swift smile of her mouth     Looked full on the north as it yearned,     And the north was more than the south.     For the north, when winter was long,     In his heart had made him a song,     And clothed it with wings of desire,     And shod it with shoon as of fire,     To carry the tale of his wrong     To the south-west wind by the sea,     That none might bear it but he     To the ear of the goddess unknown     Who waits till her time shall be     To take the world for a throne.     In the earth beneath, and above     In the heaven where her name is love,     She warms with light from her eyes     The seasons of life as they rise,     And her eyes are as eyes of a dove,     But the wings that lift her and bear     As an eagles, and all her hair     As fire by the winds breath curled,     And her passage is song through the air,     And her presence is spring through the world.     So turned she northward and came,     And the white-thorn land was aflame     With the fires that were shed from her feet,     That the north, by her love made sweet,     Should be called by a rose-red name;     And a murmur was heard as of doves,     And a music beginning of loves     In the light that the roses made,     Such light as the music loves,     The music of man with maid.     But the days drop one upon one,     And a chill soft wind is begun     In the heart of the rose-red maze     That weeps for the roseleaf days     And the reign of the rose undone     That ruled so long in the light,     And by spirit, and not by sight,     Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,     Still ruled in the viewless night,     As love might rule over death.     The time of lovers is brief;     From the fair first joy to the grief     That tells when love is grown old,     From the warm wild kiss to the cold,     From the red to the white-rose leaf,     They have but a season to seem     As rose-leaves lost on a stream     That part not and pass not apart     As a spirit from dream to dream,     As a sorrow from heart to heart.     From the bloom and the gloom that encloses     The death-bed of Love where he dozes     Till a relic be left not of sand     To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;     From the change in the grey garden-closes     To the last stray grass of the strand,     A rain and ruin of roses     Over the red-rose land.