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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONG OF THE WINDING ROAD by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD

First Line: THE MOURNERS COME FROM THE LAST DEAD ROSE
Last Line: THAT BEAUTY'S BIRTH IS AT BEAUTY'S DYING.
@3The mourners come from the last dead rose,
Crying: "Beauty is gone."
But I go up where the north wind blows
Out of the gap of dawn.
And I turn a key of the frozen snow
In a phantom gate to the road I go.@1

THERE is a road that doth wind and wind
For love of the hills about it lying,
And there I go with my cares and bind
Their burden up with a pine-tree's sighing.
Alone I go and leave behind
A dead, cold rose and the mourners crying;
And there, in a hueless tome, I find
That Beauty's birth is at Beauty's dying.

When the yellow leaf in sorrow passes
Back through the door that set it free,
When the sapless brown grows dark on the grasses
I'll turn to the bloom that few shall see.
I'll go where the barren bushes flare
With formless buds and with hueless dyes;
And out of the peopled void I'll bear
A spirit flower for a poet's eyes.

There is a loom, by the cold winds plied,
That garbs the souls of the garden's dead,
And there's not a bush on the countryside
That blooms not white where it flaunted red.
But the hosts deny this phantom dress
That hath no form and that hath no hue;
And the world is full of a cold distress,
And the mourners doubt and the doubters rue.

There's a friend who comes when a friend departs,
(Hear me now while my muse is strong)
And up from the field of broken hearts
There floats forever a pure white throng.
And a white bud burns when the red flower goes;
And a white bird sings when the blackbird leaves --
And her wings are spread when the north wind blows
And the east wind grieves.

"Mourners," I cry, "come up with me!"
And they will not come, but still I call;
And tire no more than the climbing sea
That leaps in vain up the brown cliff's wall.
And I shall sing when there's not a song
In all of the wastrel woodland, crying:
That Death is weak and that Life is strong,
And Beauty's birth is at Beauty's dying.

The relay runners are on the height,
And they race with Time and his flaming car;
And the red sun tosses at dusk his light
To a cold young moon and her comrade star.
And the graves that take are the wombs that give;
And the vale of tears is the fount of laughter;
And the deaths we die are the lives we live
In the gypsy joy of a wild hereafter.

There is a road that doth wind and wind
For love of the hills about it lying,
And the mourners pass to its peace and find
A fount of grief where the snow is flying.
And the pale leaf sings on the phantom tree;
And the wood is warm with dancing hosts --
But the sightless mourners do not see
One slim, pale limb of the dead year's ghosts.

When the rose is dead
Two roses lift to the winds their red:
The rose that was and the rose to be.
And I find two souls in the barren tree.
And the cold winds burn with the blooms of May;
And crowded with feet is the printless snow.
And elfins dance in a roundelay
Wherever I go, I go.
And the things I see you'll some day find
When you walk my road that doth wind and wind.

When the first frail flame of the woodland dies
The mourners weep with the April rain,
And their tears blur many a glad surprise
That rises up from each flower slain;
And the mourners wail, when the summer's done,
For the green leaf's sap, and they cannot see
The last brown leaf in the wind-swept tree
Hold high its hand to the last warm sun.

The march of beauty breaks not its rhyme
For one cold hour in a dismal dawn;
And the rarest wines of Avalon,
In the hours unloved of men, are mine.
And the scoffers scoff and I hear the blind:
"Will never the poet cease his crying?"
But I shall run as this road, and wind
For love of the hills about me lying.

I sing not red and I sing not blue,
But I sing their pure, white residue.
When the flame is out I will go and gain
A new, sweet joy where her light was slain.
And I, at the tomb of each dead night,
Roll back the stone where the sleeper lies,
And watch the souls of the Masters rise
And walk in the morning's clear, cold light.

The first dawn gazed in the great Deep's face,
And then stood high on her jewelled toes,
And plucked the dark at the edge of space
Where long it bloomed like a dull, black rose.
And the mourners wept for the dead flower's hue,
And wailed so long for a lost delight
That Pity brought back the rose of night
To hold their tears in a cup of dew.

I sing where never a man hath sung:
I dare of themes which they long passed by.
My rune is strange as the red pine's tongue
That dulls its song in the soft June sky,
But bursts in passion when winds are cold
And clouds are tossed in a pagan blare,
And when all the face of the world is old
I'll sing a song of the young and fair.

Adieu, dear road that dost wind and wind
For love of the hills about thee lying!
For the dead town calls with her careless blind,
And I must go, for her heart is crying.
And I bid adieu to the vagrant snow,
To the dusky pines aloofly sighing;
And come back here, that you too may know
That Beauty's birth is at Beauty's dying.



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