It was so much the way that tulips bloom, Her coming and the way she had with me -- So much the way a tulip mocks a tree Which late in April keeps a winter gloom -- That I, like one who guards in a close room Precarious fires, was wholly glad to see Such light, incautious burning -- glad that she, Completely torch, made gay her certain doom. But since those bright, disturbing flowers are dark And lie, more ash than ember, on the ground, I feel a purpose in the brilliant play That was of very life, and less a mark Of folly than of knowing quite profound And perfect things about brief-living clay. |