| |
| OH, let me take your lily hand, | |
| And where the secret star-beams shine | |
| Draw near, to see and understand | |
| Pierrot and Columbine. | |
| |
| Around the fountains, in the dew, | 5 |
| Where afternoon melts into night, | |
| With gracious mirth their gracious crew | |
| Entice the shy birds of delight. | |
| |
| Of motley dress and maskèd face, | |
| Of sparkling unrevealing eyes, | 10 |
| They track in gentle aimless chase | |
| The moment as it flies. | |
| |
| Their delicate beribboned rout, | |
| Gallant and fair, of light intent, | |
| Weaves through the shadows in and out | 15 |
| With infinite artful merriment. . . . . . . . | |
| Dear Lady of the lily hand, | |
| Do then our stars so clearly shine | |
| That we, who do not understand, | |
| May mock Pierrot and Columbine? | 20 |
| |
| Beyond this garden-grove I see | |
| The wise, the noble and the brave | |
| In ultimate futility | |
| Go down into the grave. | |
| |
| And all they dreamed and all they sought, | 25 |
| Crumbled and ashen grown, departs; | |
| And is as if they had not wrought | |
| These works with blood from out their hearts. | |
| |
| The nations fall, the faiths decay, | |
| The great philosophies go by,— | 30 |
| And life lies bare, some bitter day, | |
| A charnel that affronts the sky. | |
| |
| The wise, the noble and the brave,— | |
| They saw and solved, as we must see | |
| And solve, the universal grave, | 35 |
| The ultimate futility. . . . . . . . | |
| Look, where beside the garden-pool | |
| A Venus rises in the grove. | |
| More suave, more debonair, more cool | |
| Than ever burned with Paphian love. | 40 |
| |
| ’Twas here the delicate ribboned rout | |
| Of gallants and the fair ones went | |
| Among the shadows in and out | |
| With infinite artful merriment. | |
| |
| Then let me take your lily hand, | 45 |
| And let us tread, where starbeams shine, | |
| A dance; and be, and understand | |
| Pierrot and Columbine. | |
| |
