This Side of Paradise

There was a summer every rain was rare;

There was a season every wind was warm....

And now you pass me in the mist... your hair

Rain-blown about you, damp lips curved once more

In that wild irony, that gay despair

That made you old when we have met before;

Wraith-like you drift on out before the rain,

Across the fields, blown with the stemless flowers,

With your old hopes, dead leaves and loves again--

Dim as a dream and wan with all old hours

(Whispers will creep into the growing dark...

Tumult will die over the trees)

Now night Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse

Of day, glides down the dreaming hills, tear-bright,

To cover with her hair the eerie green...

Love for the dusk...

Love for the glistening after;

Quiet the trees to their last tops... serene...

Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter..."