Though we must die, I would not die <br />When fields are brown and bleak, <br />When wild-geese stream across the sky, <br />And the cart-lodge timbers creak. <br />For it would be so lone and drear <br />To sleep beneath the snow, <br />When children carol Christmas cheer, <br />And Christmas rafters glow. <br /> <br />Nor would I die, though we must die, <br />When yeanlings blindly bleat, <br />When the cuckoo laughs, and lovers sigh, <br />And O, to live is sweet! <br />When cowslips come again, and Spring <br />Is winsome with their breath, <br />And Life's in love with everything- <br />With everything but Death. <br /> <br />Let me not die, though we must die, <br />When bowls are brimmed with cream, <br />When milch-cows in the meadows lie, <br />Or wade amid the stream; <br />When dewy-dimpled roses smile <br />To see the face of June, <br />And lad and lass meet at the stile, <br />Or roam beneath the moon. <br /> <br />Since we must die, then let me die <br />When flows the harvest ale, <br />When the reaper lays the sickle by, <br />And taketh down the flail; <br />When all we prized, and all we planned, <br />Is ripe and stored at last, <br />And Autumn looks across the land, <br />And ponders on the past: <br />Then let me die.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/since-we-must-die/
