Ii

If he had come to her when May Danced down the wildwood,--every way Marked with white flow’rs, as if her gown Had torn and fallen,--it might be She had not met him with a frown, Nor used his love so bitterly.

Or if he had but come when June Set stars and roses to one tune, And breathed in honeysuckle throats Clove-honey of her spicy mouth, His heart had found some loving notes In hers to cheer his life’s long drouth.

He came when Fall made mad the sky, And on the hills leapt like a cry Of battle; when his youth was dead; To her, the young, the wild, the white; Whose symbol was the rose, blood-red, And his the red leaf pinched with blight.

He might have known, since youth was flown, And autumn claimed him for its own; And winter neared with snow, wild whirled, His love to her would seem absurd; To youth like hers; whose lip had curled Yet heard him to his last sad word.

Then laughed and--well, his heart denied The words he uttered then in pride; And he remembered how the gray Was his of autumn, ah! and hers, The rose-hued colors of the May, And May was all her universe.

And then he left her: and, like blood, In her deep hair, the rose; whose bud Was badge to her: while unto him, His middle-age, must still remain The red-leaf, withering at the rim, As symbol of the all-in-vain.