Classic Poem

" The mauve summer rain
Is falling again —
It soaks through the eaves
And the ladies' sleeves —
It soaks through the leaves

That like silver fish fall
In the rountains, recall
Afternoons when I
Was a child small and shy
In the palace. . . . Fish lie

On the grass with lives darkling
Our laughter falls sparkling
As the mauve raindrops bright
When they fall through the light
With the briefest delight.

The pavilions float
On the lake like a boat. . . .
Mauve rains from trees fall
Like wisteria flowers . . . all
My life is like this
And drifts into nothingness!

The strange ladies sigh
" The autumn is nigh " . . .
The King bows and mutters. . . .
His eyelids seem shutters
Of a palace pavilion
Deserted a million

Echoing years ago.
Oh, but the rain falls slow."
...

But no one heard the great Magnifico
Or this pale song, for underneath the low
Deep bough the queen slept, while the flowers that fall
Seemed Ariadne's starry coronal.