_Corydon_
The pleasant hills in solemn silence sleeping
Under a sunset of perpetual fire,
Past summer’s weeping,
Shall know no more the vibrant melody
Of thy sad songs, O lovely shepherd boy!
The winds are free
And chill November
Sweeps thy reed music and thy lyric joy
Away with all the things I would remember.
The wood-smoke on the silent autumn air,
The disconsolate petals on the grass
Symbol despair,
And all the fragrance of divine Apollo
Is fled from this incalculable loss
Where none may follow.
Is there no rest
In the stark shadow of a naked cross
In silhouette against the scarlet west?
Shall I forsake philosopher and sage
Rebellious drawn
From solemn cloister and scholastic page
And get me gone.
O shepherd of the slender fingers?
Guide me above the mountain passes
Through the lush grasses
Where thy music lingers,
Out of nocturnal anguish into dawn.
For I shall sing to thee of Mytelene
And ancient things
And paint with poppied words a twilight scene
Where Lesbos flings
Her stretch of Sapphic isle
Over the sea. Ah, liquid interlude!
We would intrude
But for a little while
Upon the rapture of ambrosial springs.
This then is all of the enchanted vision
Far from the dusty passion of the streets?
The world’s derision,
The inarticulate call
Of ageless things in the awakened woods,
Unhappy autumn moods
And the wan summons of a grieving fate,
Hastening through the twilight pall
And beauties vanished, inarticulate?
Let no dim spectres haunt my darkened brain
Like aspens whispering at eventide
Of ancient pain
So oft repeated.
I shall flee far from the abysmal night,
Not in impetuous flight,
But, lingering by Lethe’s tideless void
Shall slumber undefeated
In sunset woods, forever unannoyed.