_To_ J. C. S.
The snows have fled, the hail, the lashing rain,
Before the Spring.
The grass is starred with buttercups again,
The blackbirds sing.
Now spreads the month that feast of lovely things
We loved of old.
Once more the swallow glides with darkling wings
Against the gold.
Now the brown bees about the peach trees boom
Upon the walls;
And far away beyond the orchard's bloom
The cuckoo calls.
The season holds a festival of light
For you, for me;
But shadows are abroad, there falls a blight
On each green tree.
And every leaf unfolding, every flower
Brings bitter meed;
Beauty of the morning and the evening hour
Quickens our need.
All is reborn, but never any Spring
Can bring back this;
Nor any fullness of midsummer bring
The voice we miss.
The smiling eyes shall smile on us no more;
The laughter clear,
Too far away on the forbidden shore,
We shall not hear.
Bereft of these until the day we die,
We both must dwell;
Alone, alone, and haunted by the cry:
"Hail and farewell!
Yet when the scythe of Death shall near us hiss,
Through the cold air,
Then on the shuddering marge of the abyss
They will be there.
They will be there to lift us from sheer space
And empty night;
And we shall turn and see them face to face
In the new light.
So shall we pay the unabated price
Of their release,
And found on our consenting sacrifice
Their lasting peace.
The hopes that fall like leaves before the wind,
The baffling waste,
And every earthly joy that leaves behind
A mortal taste.
The uncompleted end of all things dear,
The clanging door
Of Death, forever loud with the last fear,
Haunt them no more.
Without them the awakening world is dark
With dust and mire;
Yet as they went they flung to us a spark,
A thread of fire.
To guide us while beneath the sombre skies
Faltering we tread,
Until for us like morning stars shall rise
The deathless dead.