 | Poems and Romances |  |
252
APRIL TEARS.
When boastful hopes that lived on high
Have fallen to die
On faded leaves of middle earth,
Where we too lie,
Both playthings of a passing game
Of little worth,
Not letters of a deathless name,
For earth to worship evermore,
What shall be left worth living for,
To light the shadows of the years?
The watery sun, the whispering breeze,
That sighs about the budding trees,
And April tears.
Have fallen to die
On faded leaves of middle earth,
Where we too lie,
Both playthings of a passing game
Of little worth,
Not letters of a deathless name,
For earth to worship evermore,
What shall be left worth living for,
To light the shadows of the years?
The watery sun, the whispering breeze,
That sighs about the budding trees,
And April tears.
253
When we have learnt that joys have stings,
And also wings
To fly away from middle earth,
And learnt what brings
Glory to shame, and more to less,
Fatness to dearth,
And stains fair things with faithlessness
Before they pass for evermore;
What shall be left worth living for,
To feed the famine of the years?
To chase the joy we may not keep,
And to be weary, and to weep
Soft April tears.
And also wings
To fly away from middle earth,
And learnt what brings
Glory to shame, and more to less,
Fatness to dearth,
And stains fair things with faithlessness
Before they pass for evermore;
What shall be left worth living for,
To feed the famine of the years?
To chase the joy we may not keep,
And to be weary, and to weep
Soft April tears.
When we perceive that all our deeds
Are but as seeds,
Cast forth in barren middle earth
Like idle weeds;
That whoso wills shall trample down
And mar their birth,
And that no might and no renown
Abides in honour evermore;
What shall be left worth living for,
To heal the fever of the years?
To cool at eve our weary eyes
With coolness of the dewy skies,
And April tears.
Are but as seeds,
Cast forth in barren middle earth
Like idle weeds;
That whoso wills shall trample down
And mar their birth,
And that no might and no renown
Abides in honour evermore;
What shall be left worth living for,
To heal the fever of the years?
254
With coolness of the dewy skies,
And April tears.
Yea, after all, we overlive,
Lose, bear, forgive,
Are sifted here on middle earth
As in a sieve.
With us, who shall not long outstay
Our woe, our mirth,
Till I shall also pass away
To what abides for evermore,—
I count these things worth living for,
That come again in passing years,—
To recollect and not regret,
Or, what is sweeter, to forget,
In April tears.
Lose, bear, forgive,
Are sifted here on middle earth
As in a sieve.
With us, who shall not long outstay
Our woe, our mirth,
Till I shall also pass away
To what abides for evermore,—
I count these things worth living for,
That come again in passing years,—
To recollect and not regret,
Or, what is sweeter, to forget,
In April tears.
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