A SONG IN SEASON

Thou whose beauty

Knows no duty

Due to love that moves thee never;

Thou whose mercies

Are men's curses,

And thy smile a scourge for ever;

Thou that givest

Death and livest

On the death of thy sweet giving;

Thou that sparest

Not nor carest

Though thy scorn leave no love living;

Thou whose rootless

Flower is fruitless

As the pride its heart encloses,

But thine eyes are

As May skies are,

And thy words like spoken roses;

Thou whose grace is

In men's faces

Fierce and wayward as thy will is;

Thou whose peerless

Eyes are tearless,

And thy thoughts as cold sweet lilies;

Thou that takest

Hearts and makest

Wrecks of loves to strew behind thee,

Whom the swallow

Sure should follow,

Finding summer where we find thee;

Thou that wakest

Hearts and breakest,

And thy broken hearts forgive thee,

That wilt make no

Pause and take no

Gift that love for love might give thee;

Thou that bindest

Eyes and blindest,

Serving worst who served thee longest;

Thou that speakest,

And the weakest

Heart is his that was the strongest;

Take in season

Thought with reason;

Think what gifts are ours for giving;

Hear what beauty

Owes of duty

To the love that keeps it living.

Dust that covers

Long dead lovers

Song blows off with breath that brightens;

At its flashes

Their white ashes

Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.

Had they bent not

Head or lent not

Ear to love and amorous duties,

Song had never

Saved for ever,

Love, the least of all their beauties.

All the golden

Names of olden

Women yet by men's love cherished,

All our dearest

Thoughts hold nearest,

Had they loved not, all had perished.

If no fruit is

Of thy beauties,

Tell me yet, since none may win them,

What and wherefore

Love should care for

Of all good things hidden in them?

Pain for profit

Comes but of it,

If the lips that lure their lover's

Hold no treasure

Past the measure

Of the lightest hour that hovers.

If they give not

Or forgive not

Gifts or thefts for grace or guerdon,

Love that misses

Fruit of kisses

Long will bear no thankless burden.

If they care not

Though love were not,

If no breath of his burn through them,

Joy must borrow

Song from sorrow,

Fear teach hope the way to woo them.

Grief has measures

Soft as pleasure's,

Fear has moods that hope lies deep in,

Songs to sing him,

Dreams to bring him,

And a red-rose bed to sleep in.

Hope with fearless

Looks and tearless

Lies and laughs too near the thunder;

Fear hath sweeter

Speech and meeter

For heart's love to hide him under.

Joy by daytime

Fills his playtime

Full of songs loud mirth takes pride in;

Night and morrow

Weave round sorrow

Thoughts as soft as sleep to hide in.

Graceless faces,

Loveless graces,

Are but motes in light that quicken,

Sands that run down

Ere the sundown,

Roseleaves dead ere autumn sicken.

Fair and fruitless

Charms are bootless

Spells to ward off age's peril;

Lips that give not

Love shall live not,

Eyes that meet not eyes are sterile.

But the beauty

Bound in duty

Fast to love that falls off never

Love shall cherish

Lest it perish,

And its root bears fruit for ever.