Classic Poem

Larkspur; windy July;
Trees riding up from the southward,
Green waves frozen before they fell,
Shattered with grey rifts of light:
Flickering in amber sunbeams,
Glinting with gold as the sunset passed,
We sat together and saw them change,
And in our hearts was peace.

In calm and opulent terraces
The sky unrolled ribbed cloud for us;
Marble-veined azure, peacefully walled.
Two and two went the grave white angels
Smiling and sometimes speaking to us:
The lower ones brooding in shadow,
The upper ones romping in sunlight
Where like white ladders the light ran up
From the cellars to upper balconies,
Where with wind-blown daisies frail gardens bloomed in mid-air.

We watched them from the verandah,
Sitting together, you holding my hand;
The wind flapped the heavy bough-curtains,
And all our thoughts were at rest.
We were not troubled with anything,
We knew that this day was made for us,
We knew that new days would come in time,
The future and the past were now one.

Long we watched dark swallows hovering
Swift up the wind-waves of the sky.
Fluttering, soaring, and calling,
Wheeling like well-ordered oarsmen.
They passed through the sunpool washing the trees,
Rippling with warm heat over the world,
Caressing and changing the final faint clouds,
Before they receded to rest.

Evening bells sounded hollow, forlorn,
Out of a valley wreathed in white mist;
It was the time you must quit my side.
You went without pain or regret.
Such a perfect understanding ruled over our hearts,
That, parting, I felt that you still held my hand;
For all of my life was known by you
In such serene comprehensive surrender,
That I slept every night with no false dreams to mar my sleep.