CROCUSES

Desires,

Little determined desires,

Gripped by the mould,

Moving so hardly among

The earth, of whose heart they were bred,

That is old; it is old,

Not gracious to little desires such as these,

But apter for work on the bases of trees,

Whose branches are hung

Overhead,

Very mightily, there overhead.

Through the summer they stirred,

They strove to the bulbs after May,

Until harvest and song of the bird

Went together away;

And ever till coming of snows

They worked in the mould, for undaunted were those

Swift little determined desires, in the earth

Without sign, any day,

Ever shaping to marvels of birth,

Far away.

And we went

Without heed

On our way,

Never knowing what virtue was spent,

Day by day,

By those little desires that were gallant to breed

Such beauty as fortitude may.

Not once in our mind

Was that corner of earth under trees,

Very mighty and tall,

As we travelled the roads and the seas,

And gathered the wage of our kind,

And were laggard or trim to the call

Of the duties that lengthen the hours

Into seasons that flourish and fall.

And blind,

In the womb of the flowers,

Unresting they wrought,

In the bulbs, in the depth of the year,

Buried far from our thought;

Till one day, when the thrushes were clear

In their note it was spring — and they know —

Unheeding we came into sight

Of that corner forgotten, and lo,

They had won through the meshes of mould,

And treasuries lay in the light,

Of ivory, purple, and gold.