ROSA DECIDUA 
139 
 
I am warned—that’s the word.  Let my own back feel 
the lash !   
All power of live is burnt right through to ash. 
Bray it in a mortar, mix with gall and ink, 
And give it to the children for a drink !   
 
I’ll wait till she is dead, to bring those tears. 
I doubt not in the garden of my heart 
Whence she is torn that flowers will bloom again. 
May those be flowers of weeping, flowers of art. 
Flowers of great tenderness and pain, 
Broad lilied meers 
Lying in a lonely leafless forest 
Silent and motionless beneath the moon. 
 
I feel my weakness, O thou soul that soarest 
Into a heaven beyond imagining 
On the unfaltering wing. 
Of the magic swan !  I know this tune 
Should swell to a strong note, a triumph note 
Blared through a trumpet’s throat 
To tell the world I am no coward, or else 
Sob in sweet minor, soft as Asmodel’s 
Chant to the nightingale.  I am so wrecked, so rent 
That one seems brag, the other sentiment. 
I cannot leave the present ;  I will not pose 
There lies the rotten rose 
And stinks.  That is the truth ;  the rest is gloss. 
My loss was total loss. 
So close that rose lay to my heart, its fall 
Was the catastrophe of all.