The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

ROSA IGNOTA II THE GARDEN Because of the gray dreams In the garden of yellow roses, A thrill of the quiet streams In the garden of lost delight : Ah! youth, so slim and white, The one sure blossom uncloses: When thou art lying still and dead, it blooms in the heart of the night. Shattered the golden sword in the great bronze hands of the old Hermaphrodite of the ages | O youth, so sad and wise, Shattered the strong hilt lies; The great bronze god for wages Has a hilt of gold, and eyes of gold, Beneath the sunless skies. Yet it were well to have been Idle and young and tender, Ignorantly and idly wise, disdainful in the dawn, Sweetest of all the green And gold that the gods surrender Of the sweet dead times that have seen The marriage of nymph with faun. 139