by Eliot · Cluster: Transience · Decay · Carpe Diem
Abstract
Short lyric in which an unfaded landscape contrasts with the faded roses of the beloved’s wreath; understated emblem of decay and lost love amid living nature.
Connections
Motifs: Rose, Decay, Nature Themes & Concepts: Transience, Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Comic Verse Song
Testo integrale / Full text
Song: ‘When we came home across the hill’
When we came home across the hill
No leaves were fallen from the trees;
The gentle fingers of the breeze
Had torn no quivering cobweb down.
The hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,
No withered petals lay beneath;
But the wild roses in your wreath
Were faded, and the leaves were brown.
Before Morning
While all the East was weaving red with gray,
The flowers at the window turned toward dawn,
Petal on petal, waiting for the day,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
This morning’s flowers and flowers of yesterday
Their fragrance drifts across the room at dawn,
Fragrance of bloom and fragrance of decay,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.