eaven, but smooths
My path to the old earth, where still I know
Once more the sweet lost days, and once again
Blossom on that soft breast, and am again
A youth, and rapt in love; and yet not all
As careless as of yore; but seem to know
The early spring of passion, tamed by time
And suffering, to a calmer, fuller flow,
Less fitful, but more strong."

Lewis Morris.

And when the time of the singing of birds has come, and the flowers
have thrown off their white snow pall, and the brown earth grows
radiant in its adornments of green blade and of fragrant blossom, we
know that Adonis has returned from his exile, and trace his footprints
by the fragile flower that is his very own, the white flower with the
golden heart, that trembles in the wind as once the white hands of a
grief-stricken goddess shook for sorrow.

"The flower of Death" is the name that the Chinese give to the
wind-flower--the wood-anemone. Yet surely the flower that was born of
tears and of blood tells us of a life that is beyond the grave--of a
love which is unending.

The cruel tusk of a rough, remorseless winter still yearly slays the
"lovely Adonis" and drives him down to the Shades. Yet we know that
Spring, with its _Sursum Corda_, will return as long as the earth
shall endure; even as the sun must rise each day so long as time shall
last, to make

"Le ciel tout en fleur semble une immense rose
Qu'un Adonis celeste a teinte de son sang."

De Heredia.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Aphrodite.

PAN

"What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

* * * * *

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!