A Picture by Frederick Sandys by Gordon Bottomley Lyrics

Your immemorial stream is as your eyes,
Languid to stillness, deep and dark as death:
Its inner waters nothing wakeneth—
No thrill of sorrow shatters in any wise
Their heavy-lidded quiet; memories
Swoon and are lost therein; all perisheth,
Save the delight of death, without a breath
To trouble those pools wherein oblivion lies.
Rich is your ceaseless poppy-harvesting,
As on your unremembered path you stray,
Meet flowers for the sorry garlanding
Of Proserpine reft from the world away
(Ease and forgetting do such coronals bring,
In their imperious odour's dreamy sway).