When I was green, the heavens oft did frown,
With tempests dark, yet sometimes pierced by gold.
My garden, scarr’d by rain that beat it down,
Bore naught of fruit its gentle womb might hold.

Lo, autumn cometh with her solemn tread,
And I must seek my grove, now left forlorn.
The yield I ought have gatherèd lies dead
By briny tides to grave and shadow borne.

In soil thus sick, by salt and sorrow marred,
What hidden balm could nurse a seedling’s breath?
May blossoms dreamt in sleep the frost discard?
Or must all bloom be choked by time and death?

An inward fiend grows glutted on my pain,
It drinks my heart and sings in tones profane.