The dense, hard passage is blind and stifled That crawls by a track none turn to climb To the strait waste place that the years have rifled Of all but the thorns that are touch'd not of Time. The thorns he spares when the rose is taken; The rocks are left when he wastes the plain. Not a flower to be press'd of the foot that falls not; As the heart of a dead man the seedplots are dry; From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not, Could she call, there were never a rose to reply. Over the meadows that blossom and wither The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. Only the wind here hovers and revels In a round where life seems barren as The wind that wanders, the weeds wind- They are loveless now as the grass above shaken, These remain. them Or the wave. |