The First Verses

Gather great store of roses, crimson-red From ancient gardens under summer skies: New opened buds, and some that soon must shed Their leaves to earth, that all expectant lies; Some from the paths of poets' wandering, Some from the places where young lovers meet, Some from the seats of dreamers pondering, And all most richly red, and honey-sweet.

For in the splendour of the afternoon, When sunshine lingers on the glittering town And glorifies the temples wondrous-hewn All set about it like a deathless crown, We will go mingle with the solemn throng, With neither eyes that weep, nor hearts that bleed, That to his grave with slow, majestic song Bears down the latest of the godlike seed.

Many a singer lies on distant isle Beneath the canopy of changing sky: Around them waves innumerable smile, And o'er their head the restless seabirds cry: But we will lay him far from sound of seas, Far from the jutting crags' unhopeful gloom, Where there blows never wind save summer breeze, And where the growing rose may clasp his tomb.

And thither in the splendid nights of spring, When stars in legions over heaven are flung, Shall come the ancient gods, all wondering Why he sings not that had so richly sung: There Heracles with peaceful foot shall press The springing herbage, and Hephaestus strong, Hera and Aphrodite's loveliness, And the great giver of the choric song.

And thither, after weary pilgrimage, From unknown lands beyond the hoary wave, Shall travellers through every coming age Approach to pluck a blossom from his grave: Some in the flush of youth, or in the prime, Whose life is still as heaped gold to spend, And some who have drunk deep of grief and time, And who yet linger half-afraid the end.