Could the unknowing gods, waked in compassion,
Eternalize the splendour of this hour,
And from the world’s frail garlands strongly fashion
An ageless Paradise, celestial bower,
Where our long-sundered souls could rise in power
To the complete fulfilment of their dream,
And never know again that years devour
Petals and light, bird-note and woodland theme,
And floods of young desire, bright as a silver stream,

Should we be happy, thou and I together,
Lying in love eternally in spring,
Watching the buds unfold that shall not wither,
Hearing the birds calling and answering,

When the leaves stir and all the meadows ring? 
Smelling the rich earth steaming in the sun,
Feeling between caresses the light wing
Of the wind whose gracious flight is never done,—­
Should we be happy then? happy, elusive One?

But no, here in this fragile flesh abides
The secret of a measureless delight,
Hidden in dying beauty there resides
Something undying, something that takes its flight
When the dust turns to dust, and day to night,
And spring to fall, whose joys in love redeem
Eternally, life’s changes and death’s blight,
Even as these pale, tender petals seem
A glimpse of infinite beauty, flashed in a passing dream.

Cambridge, 1916

II

The heavy bee burdened the golden clover
Droning away the afternoon of summer,
Deep in the rippling grass I called to you
Under the sky’s blue flame. 
Then when the day was over,
When petals fell fresh with the falling dew,
Stepped from the dusk a radiant newcomer,
Fled by the waters of the sleeping river,
Swift to the arms of your impatient lover,
Gladly you came. 
And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.

Thin rain of the saddest of Septembers
Bent the tall grasses of the sloping meadows,
But spring was with me in your slender form,
And the frail joy of spring. 
Although the chilly embers
Of summer vanished into the gathering storm
And the wind clung to the overhanging shadows,
Fair seemed the spirit’s desperate endeavour,
(And even fair to the spirit that remembers)
Joy on the wing! 
And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.

Years, and in slow lugubrious succession
Drop from the trees the leaves’ first yellowed leaders,
Autumn is in the air and in the past,
Desolate, utterly. 
Sunlight and clouds in hesitant procession,
Laughter and tears, and winter at the last. 
There is a battle-music in the cedars,
High on the hills of life the grasses shiver. 
Hail, dead reality and living vision,
Thrice hail in memory. 
And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this for ever.

Tours, 1918

III