All beneath a wintering sky,
Follow the wastrel butterfly;
With vermilion leaf or bronze-
Tatters of gorgeous gonfalons-
With the winds that always hold
Echo of clarions lost and old-
We must hasten, hasten on
Toward the azure world withdrawn,
We must wander, wander so
Where the ruining roses go;
Where the poplar's pallid leaves
Drift among the gathered sheaves
In that harvest none shall glean;
Where the twisted willows lean
In their strange, tormented woe,
Seeing, on the streamlet's flow,
Half their fragile leaves depart;
Where the secret pines at heart,
High, funereal, vespertine,
Guard eternal sorrows green:-
We shall follow, we shall find
Haply, ere the light is blind,
The moulded place where Beauty lay,
Moon-beheld until the day,
In the woven windlestrae;
Or the pool of tourmaline,
Rimmed with golden reeds, that was
In the dawn a tiring-glass
For her undelaying mien.
Ever wander, wander so,
Where the ruining roses go;
All beneath a wintering sky,
Follow the wastrel butterfly.
Quest
Clark Ashton Smith
(1)
Poem topics: beauty, green, heart, light, lost, moon, world, place, eternal, blind, secret, hold, high, golden, gorgeous, strange, Valentine's Day, glass, dawn, guard, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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