I.
SEPTEMBER TO MAY
A song of storm-blown dark-browed sad September,
A song of autumn to the light of May;
A song for spring's soft girl-heart to remember
When autumn's tired heart passes quite away.
How many loves have stood with looks of gladness
Within the portals memory's stars illume!
But in the end the laughter changed to sadness
And passion's heart grew ice-cold at a tomb.
Now, give me not the passion-flower that perishes,
But love that hath within it friendship's light:
The starlike love Time's conquering strong hand cherishes
When passion's sun sinks, foundering in the night.
Be May, divinely bright, divinely tender,
With eyes wherethrough my last romance may gleam.
O flower-sweet heart, bring back the lost years' splendour,
As May restores each year the dead springs' dream.
'Tis well to know that when the whole hereafter
Seems dark, when wrinkled pain courts sorrow's eyes,
Pain's brow grows smooth before a young girl's laughter
And sorrow owns her sovereignty, and flies.
Our England needs her hills and singing waters,
Her ever-virgin zone of sunlit sea;
But most of all she needs her fair-souled daughters:
The mist-veiled future hath its task for thee.
Bear ever in mind, of all her pure girl-roses
Each stainless rose makes England's armour strong;
Renews her force as each wild century closes,
Till war's fierce clarion cheers her like a song.
And bear in mind that dim September, seeking
Nought now but rest within the darkening grove,
Found still within his heart the strength for speaking
One strange sweet word, and that one word was love.
