Impressions: A Book of Verse/With a Flower From Carnac

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

WITH A FLOWER FROM CARNAC

I PLUCKED this bit of yellow gorse for thee
By a huge menhir where on Carnac's shore
The long waves murmur dirges evermore
For men dead ere the birth of history.—
Here once they lived whom Time's immensity
Hath quite o'erwhelmed, and blotted out their page
From the world's book! On them may learned sage
Descant, and poet dream, here by the sea!
But none may know what were their thoughts, their lives—
None e'er may know! none living or un- born!—
Were these their tombs built where the strong sea strives
In vain to hold the warm elusive sands?
Were these hard by their altars, where forlorn
They stretched to Heaven imploring empty hands?