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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Marjorie Allen Seiffert

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Cythaera and the Leaves

Marjorie Allen Seiffert

Ancient, terrible tree,

You drink the light of leaves

And shed the leaves relentlessly.

My heart is April-green,

And its belief

Is in sunlight, not in trees

Or secret roots it has not seen.

My heart is light as a leaf—

Let it go dancing down the breeze!

Withered and beaten, sodden, drowned,

It shall see faithful leaves turn red and gold,

And cling, and hold;

Until despite their gold and red

They flutter to the ground.

Shall leaves remember flying

When they are dead?