XIV

The lights within the ice-floes are our flowers,

Lily and daffodil and violet.

Beneath these monstrous suns that never set

Tremble soft rainbows, young as Earth's first hours,

Ancient as Time. No balm of gentle showers

Make for their growth; for them, gigantic, met

The immemorial ice and sun, to get

Such blossoms — pledge of Beauty's bravest powers.

Violet and pale grass-green, the Spring-time dies

In the soft South. To us, in this grim world,

Daring with frozen heart and tearless eyes

The North's white sanctity, Fate idly throws

These alms — a deathless Spring of ice enfurled,

And over all, far flung, the sunset rose.