My youth was but a dark-aired hurricane, Pierced by an eye of sun from time to time; So ravaged was my world by bolts and rain That in my garden few red fruits still climb. Now at the autumn of the mind I stand, And here I am to toil with rake and spade If I am to renew this flooded land Of grave-sized holes the burrowing rains have made. And who knows if my dream-grown flowers shall reach Beneath this soil now scrubbed into a beach And taste the mystic foods that heal their parts? Ache! Ache in me! What lifetimes Time devours! And the dark Enemy that gnaws our hearts Strengthens his blood by draining us of ours.