Summer Ending

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Title:     Summer Ending
Author: Laurence Alma-Tadema [More Titles by Alma-Tadema]

Over the world a breath
Has fallen as of Spring; the tender sky
Hangs tremulous, a shield through which the sun
Shines as the heart smiles in a mist of tears.
The trees are green still, but their branches bear
The blossoms of the fall; each quivering birch
Shakes golden coins upon her silver stem;
The little rowan rears his corals gay,
The purple sloes are thick upon the thorn,
And every breeze new-scatters to the ground
Spoils red and yellow. Here upon the hill
Where at our feet bee-haunted heather glows
Among the rocks, sweet peace enfolds us; see,
On velvet slopes afar the patient kine
In silence browse; the plough in furrows wide
Has turned the weary earth to rest; the sun
Sinks and, across the valley, mountains fade
From blue to grey and pearl-like touch the sky.
The hour of silver comes now, for the moon
Awakes and softly films the dusk with light;
The narrow river in her ample bed
Answers the stars, and soft serenity
Has spread her wings upon the earth....
O Heart
Of man!--why must you throb apart and know
A tempered Peace where Nature's Peace is pure?
Already winter's snows upon the hills
Like phantoms to our vision rise; the trees
Groan leafless in the wind, and ghosts of pain
Flit dark between the present and our eyes.
'Tis thus we murder Joy, and let To-morrow,
A still-born Terror, anguish dear To-day:
'Tis thus, possessing Wealth, we shiver poor
Ere we are stricken: thus our claspèd hands
Grow cold and ache with Solitude to be....

Kasna, September 1901.

[The end]
Laurence Alma-Tadema's poem: Summer Ending

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