Ballade of Illusion [poem by Marie E. J. Pitt]

[Editor: This poem by Marie E. J. Pitt was published in The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911).]

Ballade of Illusion.

Glint of woodland, and glamour of dew,
Reeling riot of sap in the tree,
Lilt of lark-song aloft in the blue
Or cicada’s importunate glee!
O to rest on a somnolent lea
Where the gold of the buttercup glows —
And the winds bring us guerdon and fee
From the heart of a mystical rose!

Tho’ we winnow the false from the true
To the sob of Adversity’s sea
For a vision that fired us and flew,
For a choked inarticulate plea,
From a valley of Never To Be
Comes a wind of the morning that blows,
Incense-laden for you and for me,
From the heart of a mystical rose.

Tho’ a phantom of joy we pursue,
Tho’ it flash like a phantom and flee,
Tho’ life’s roses be choked with its rue,
And vain shadows of shadows are we,
Tho’ dark be the doom we must dree
In our camps of the sands or the snows,
Yet our dreams shall be passport and key
To the heart of a mystical rose.

Sweetheart mine, tho’ the gods may decree
Never mortal may roam where it grows,
Still earthward a rapture floats free
From the heart of a mystical rose.

Source:
Marie E. J. Pitt, The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses, Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1911, pages 42-43