Classic Poem

Of all the colonnade
Thou, fragment white, remainest —
Thou, only, unbetrayed,
Hint of the antique shrine;
From the dim land of visions thou refrainest,
Lest in our dream that realm look less divine.

To make us dream, thou 'lt stay:
Around thy marbles fluted,
Frail passions of a day
In crimson roses run.
A clue art thou to harmonies unluted —
Pledge of the past to many a Junetime sun.

Rose, rose, my heart like thee
Sends bloom sweet-leaved and solemn
Up round white Memory,
Sole remnant of the past:
But with thy stain the plinth is red; thy column
Knows not, though fair, the sweeter blooms that last!