My Love Lies Bleeding (Part Ii)

I turn and run down to the wet places where fawns remedy their thirst from the waterbrooks. Panting, I fall to my knees and gather buttercups, crowsfoots, hellebore and peonies and grind the crimson, white, yellow and purple petals atop a stone. I brush the crushed blossoms into a straight trumpet with my fingertips and dip out water from a brook with my cupped palm to mix the elixir in the lily. As I lean over the small stream, brooding and pining away, I catch a glimpse of my reflection below, only to notice the looming of a narcissus beside my visage. Then, I hear a song of coos go out to my love, and I turn about in fear when I see the bobolink migrating. So, in a pledge of hope and trust toward her, I knot the golden chain she gave me hanging around my neck. Thus, hasting through the field of flowers, my lovelorn heart pounds as I run back to her. Though she's slipping away, her ruddy color is unfaded, so I anxiously give her the medicinal draft. Some spills over her milky teeth and rosy cheeks in rivulets, while the remainder goes down within. I observe. All the snowdrops fall. The buckthorns rustle. The central flowers in their clusters bloom, then all the clusters open. I stretch out upon my love mouth to mouth and breast to breast. The potion stimulates her heart, and I feel her flesh warm under mine. Her wounds heal. Now my love lies breathing, strengthened and embraced in my arms; in our flower bed weeping aloud, we rise and clasp hands and dance rings around the roses to my rheumy serenade.