Mater Dolorosa

Earth takes but little pleasure to remember— 
Being a widow now, that was a wife — 
How sweet May was, how bountiful September, 
What wayward music April's chanter blew. 
Her leaping fires of life 
Burn down beneath the fall of frosty dew,
And dwindle slowly to the last red ember 
That is December. 

She knows not how it went, the Linus-song 
Whose burden the brown reapers bore along 
As they brought home the sheaves. 
Nay, though the thistle yielded figs, from thorn 
Though purple grapes were born, 
She would not wonder. She is past surprise; 
The certainty of grief is in her eyes. 
And that she once was glad she scarce believes. 

She dares not pay for summer to return. 
Against her eyelids burn 
The tears that fall not, — for what use are tears? 
Above her head a naked plane-tree rears 
Wild arms of all despair,
Reaching out blindly through the frosty air 
For its beloved leaves that rotting lie 
Where Winter with his ménie has passed by. 

Under the touch of their empoisoned spears, 
The fair and gallant wood 
That all the summer-time green-coated stood, 
Stands naked to the bone, and wrings its hands 
Above the altered lands. 
Earth watches while her little children die, 
The frozen wasp, the starving butterfly — 
She has no tears for them, but in her heart 
Knife-edged the Seven Sorrows wake and start