Mandragora/The Willow-seeds
- THE WILLOW-SEEDS
LOOK! The seeds of a willow-tree,
Falling on grass that must have grown,
In this one spot for a thousand years!
The tossing wind like a gusty sea
Over the elder-bushes blown,
Over the hollow-foliaged elms,
With their orbed shadows in hemispheres,
What wild, strange thoughts it brings to me
From what deep reluctant realms!
Can Fate itself remember the day
When I wandered here from some sea-shore?
I saw these elder-bushes, I saw
This lonely place — that tree-trunk grey;
I saw the willow-seeds cover the grass —
The grass that has grown for a thousand years!
I saw the hollow-foliaged elms,
And then, as now, from reluctant realms.
Came thoughts that would not pass.
What lives we lead — dear God, what lives!
What a palimpsest of double days,
The Master of our journey gives!
Forever round our casual ways
Strange omens peer, strange portents wink;
And we stand darkly on the brink
Of more than mortal mysteries.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse