I <br /> (MINOR) <br /> <br />THE ANCIENT memories buried lie, <br /> And the olden fancies pass; <br />The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly, <br />And die as the April cowslips die, <br /> That scatter the bloomy grass. <br /> <br />All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead, <br /> And the happy blossoming spring; <br />The winter comes with its iron tread, <br />The fields with the dying sun are red, <br /> And the birds have ceas’d to sing. <br /> <br />I trace the steps on the wasted strand <br /> Of the vanish’d springtime’s feet: <br />Wither’d and dead is our Fairyland, <br />For Love and Death go hand in hand <br /> Go hand in hand, my sweet! <br /> <br /> II <br /> (MAJOR) <br /> <br /> OH, what shall be the burden of our rhyme, <br />And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime? <br />Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long: <br />We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song! <br /> <br /> O lady of my summer and my spring, <br />We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing, <br />And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet, <br />When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet. <br /> <br /> We shall see the roses blowing in the green, <br />The pink-lipp’d roses kissing in the golden summer sheen; <br />We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold, <br />And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crown’d wold. <br /> <br /> The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain; <br />There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain; <br />But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together, <br />And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympic weather.<br /><br />John Howard Payne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cadences/
