Arthur Davison Ficke

OH, let me take your lily hand,

And where the secret star-beams shine

Draw near, to see and understand

Pierrot and Columbine.

Around the fountains, in the dew,

Where afternoon melts into night,

With gracious mirth their gracious crew

Entice the shy birds of delight.

Of motley dress and maskèd face,

Of sparkling unrevealing eyes,

They track in gentle aimless chase

The moment as it flies.

Their delicate beribboned rout,

Gallant and fair, of light intent,

Weaves through the shadows in and out

With infinite artful merriment.

…….

Dear Lady of the lily hand,

Do then our stars so clearly shine

That we, who do not understand,

May mock Pierrot and Columbine?

Beyond this garden-grove I see

The wise, the noble and the brave

In ultimate futility

Go down into the grave.

And all they dreamed and all they sought,

Crumbled and ashen grown, departs;

And is as if they had not wrought

These works with blood from out their hearts.

The nations fall, the faiths decay,

The great philosophies go by,—

And life lies bare, some bitter day,

A charnel that affronts the sky.

The wise, the noble and the brave,—

They saw and solved, as we must see

And solve, the universal grave,

The ultimate futility.

…….

Look, where beside the garden-pool

A Venus rises in the grove.

More suave, more debonair, more cool

Than ever burned with Paphian love.

’Twas here the delicate ribboned rout

Of gallants and the fair ones went

Among the shadows in and out

With infinite artful merriment.

Then let me take your lily hand,

And let us tread, where starbeams shine,

A dance; and be, and understand

Pierrot and Columbine.

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