Blindness, and women wailing on white seas,

Seas where no placid sails have ever been,

Dreams like wan demons on waste marshes seen

Thro’ dulling, fevered eyes. The dregs and lees

Of wine long spilt to dead divinities.

Grey, empty days when Spring is never green,

Can the heart answer what these riddles mean—

Can the life hold such hopelessness as these?

Love lying low in the long pleasant grass,

Youth with his eager face against the sun,

They may not guess the hours when these shall pass,

In what drear coin such lovely dreams are paid,

At what grim cost their flowery days are won,

When man is old and lonely and afraid.