The Flower Bride

In the land of lost content,

hard by the little bridge of Clun,

I see another Chloe walk alone,

dreaming among the trees

of a second Daphnis who

will pirate her away,

or carve her name upon an oak,

bound within the circuit of a heart,

in remembrance of young lovers,

destined to lie apart, though

not yet struck through by Eros' shaft

or long separated by the sea.

The letters carved there should have been

A...... , one not worthy of her praise

and B......, the flower bride herself,

signifying past dreams of innocence

that never came to be, or lie cast down

by life's vicissitudes, diverted

as the purling streams by rocky ground.

Here, strewn with broom, and meadowsweet,

between the hawthorn hedges, stiles

and five-barred gates was Arcady,

bound round with farms, a little town

that gave birth to the Queen of May.

Who dare say it was not Zeus himself,

all idle on a springtide day, who saw

this prize and coveted the beauty

of the flowers of May in human form,

called Danae in Greek isles so far away,

and as a burning cloud came down

the fecund vales and rolling hills,

all hot with lust from out of Wales,

sowing golden rain upon the storm-tossed flowers,

in the mythic hours of youth's eternal rage,

saturating Bloduewedds's glowing bowers,

a verdant splendour never lost with age.

While lovers sup upon the curving lips,

the busy bee within the rosy cup

tightens his grip upon the heaving hips

or despoils the yellow livery

of Iris blowing in the marshy field.

Storm rent skies painted by the Sun abate

and the gently falling rain creates

a bow that ties the knot of promises,

made but neither kept by gods nor men.

The fallen leaf now floating down the stream,

that once trembled in the morning Sun,

drinks in the import of the darkening dream.