The same good tune! p. 45XXX p. 45 I send you roses—red, like love, And white, like death, sweet friend: Born in your bosom to rejoice, Languish, and droop, and end. If the white roses tell of death, Let the red roses mend The talk with true stories of love Unchanging till the end. Red and white roses, love and death— What else is left to send? For what is life but love, the means, And death, true Wife, the end? p. 46XXXI p. 46 These glad, these great, these goodly days Bewildering hope, outrunning praise, The Earth, renewed by the great Sun’s longing, Utters her joy in a million ways! What is there left, sweet Soul and true— What, for us and our dream to do? What but to take this mighty Summer As it were made for me and you? Take it and live it beam by beam, Motes of light on a gleaming stream, Glare by glare and glory on glory Through to the ash of this flaming dream! p. 47XXXII p. 47 The downs, like uplands in Eden, Gleam in an afterglow Like a rose-world ruining earthwards— Mystical, wistful, slow! Near and afar in the leafage, That last glad call to the nest! And the thought of you hangs and triumphs With Hesper low in the west! Till the song and the light and the colour, The passion of earth and sky, Are blent in a rapture of boding Of the death we should one day die. p. 48XXXIII p. 48 The time of the silence Of birds is upon us: Rust in the chestnut leaf, Dust in the stubble: The turn of the Year And the call to decay. Stately and splendid, The Summer passes: Sad with satiety, Sick with fulfilment; Spent and consumed, But august till the end.
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