We cannot say for our comfort: 'Losing them, We gain a glimpse of noble terrible heights, A cleansing exquisite pain, a sacred grief, A dream to cherish'--we think of the vanished lights;
We think of the fine nerves shattered, the warm blood chilled, The laughter silenced, the zest and the beauty gone, The desolation of wasted wonderful dreams That will never be lived, of work that cannot be done.
Was it for this we loved: to settle down (Having once paid the necessary fee) In some nice suburb not too far from town, To eat and sleep and kiss complacently, Loving by rote as decent people do: Was it for this we hungered, I and you?
A lover's vows are gossamer, they say; But we have registered our mutual vow For seven and sixpence, dearest. Yesterday There was but love to bind our hearts, but now We owe it to the Vicar to be good And love each other as we said we would.
That promise at the altar is a link (Which only death can break) between us two; For every time I kiss you I shall think: 'How this would please the Vicar if he knew!' And we shall put our youthful dreams to bed, And so live on--long after we are dead.
We are made one. One mind will serve us both. ('Oh yes, we think Locke's novels rather sweet!') In ever-living witness of our troth You'll serve the vegetables, I the meat... O happiness! It is our wedding day! Embrace me, dear: the Prayer Book says you may.
We wage eternal war on the losing side; Ever defeated we by the sinister foe That only pathetic piety seeks to hide In a theological costume of long ago.
The goal we seek to attain will never be ours: All our hopes will end in ashes and dust; All our dreams will be dead desolate flowers, Plucked by the pitiless Hand we were taught to trust.
Doomed to eternal defeat in the endless strife, Scornful of Chance the Almighty, we worship with pride The divine, frail, terrible Beauty of Life On the Cross of Fate incessantly crucified.
My memories of you are singing birds In the green forest of my mind, where I May roam, recapturing your whispered words, Or on a bank of glowing bluebells lie, Listening for ever. Spring is come again In all her glory; the erst withered trees That creaked, like living skeletons in pain, Defying the wind, have donned green garments: these New shoots, these blossoms and these buds, the springing Grass, and the sky where many colours blend, My songsters by the magic of their singing Have in a moment made. My thoughts of you Are music which to all my spirit's rue Is the ineffable answer and the end.