A Madrigal Poem by Clark Ashton Smith

My dreams are belated orioles
That flee the mournful mists
To find, in the heaven of thy soul,
The lost summer and the balsam
Of all the fugitive flowerings.

My dreams are dying flowers,
But ever their fragrant lives
Mount toward the altar of thy heart
In a soft and heatless air
Where indolent clouds are bom.

My dreams are olden songs
Sung on a clouded evening,
That mount among the petals
Of pale and perfumed roses
Falling at thy shadowy shutters.