Poems (Young)/The Dead Eros

by Ella Young

THE DEAD EROS.

It must be many ages since you died,
Yet the earth-mountains and unquiet streams
And all the swaying reeds remember you;
And we remember, and tell o'er and o'er
The story of your coming, and the grief
That fell on all things living when you died.
We call you Balder, White and Beautiful,
And Young Adonis whom the wild boar slew,
Diarmuid the Brown-Haired; Angus fast asleep
In the Blue Wood of Shadows where no wind
Comes ever roughly and no voice from earth
Can break the quiet; and we mourn for you
Who cannot hear us, while Apollo sings
And Lugh the Mighty Slinger sends the sun
Whirling through heaven. Even the happy gods
Shed tears for Balder, but we mourn for you!
As only men can mourn through nights and days
Made sick with failure, sorrowful and lone.
Dead Eros, you are buried in our hearts
With our dead hopes that drew around them once
So much of joy and beauty, and took all
Into the Dark where all things fair must go.
You are the love we cannot keep: the dream
We die for, and the peace always unknown,
Dead Eros folded in the arms of Night.