Poems (Tree)/Lolling in Snow, Like Kings in Ermine Coats
LOLLING in snow, like kings in ermine coats, the gilt-crowned bottles lie. . . . Our thoughts are dangled in a laughter of leaves as bunches of blue and yellow grapes for faery beggars, for ragged fancies to pluck and taste.
Our music shall be the minstrelsy of ghostly ballad-mongers that have stolen from the ashen banquets of death to bless our revels.
Our spirits shall flit like those winged faces of cherubs that never can alight, but swing forever on the azure ribbons of the sky.
And all our dreams and kisses shall be as the rose-leaves falling on ancient festivals, as the shadows of rose-leaves falling on phantom lovers in the sleep-pillared temples of our first archaic passion.
Our music shall be the minstrelsy of ghostly ballad-mongers that have stolen from the ashen banquets of death to bless our revels.
Our spirits shall flit like those winged faces of cherubs that never can alight, but swing forever on the azure ribbons of the sky.
And all our dreams and kisses shall be as the rose-leaves falling on ancient festivals, as the shadows of rose-leaves falling on phantom lovers in the sleep-pillared temples of our first archaic passion.
1918