This will not pass so soon,

Dear friend, this will not pass,

Though time is out of tune

With all beneath the moon,

Man and woman and flower and grass.

These will not pass.

For there’s a word “Return”

That’s known among the quick and the dead,

Making two realms for ever cry and mourn.

So mourns the land of darkness when

Into the light away the lily is led,

And so gives thanks again

When from the earth the snow-pale beauty goes

Back to her home. Persephone,

Surely all this can only be

A light exchange and amorous interplay

In your strange twofold immortality;

And a diversion for a summer day

The death and resurrection of the rose.