The last year's leaves are on the beech: <br />The twigs are black; the cold is dry; <br />To deeps beyond the deepest reach <br />The Easter bells enlarge the sky. <br />O ordered metal clatter-clang! <br />Is yours the song the angels sang? <br />You fill my heart with joy and grief - <br />Belief! Belief! And unbelief… <br />And, though you tell me I shall die, <br />You say not how or when or why. <br /> <br />Indifferent the finches sing, <br />Unheeding roll the lorries past: <br />What misery will this year bring <br />Now spring is in the air at last? <br />For, sure as blackthorn bursts to snow, <br />Cancer in some of us will grow, <br />The tasteful crematorium door <br />Shuts out for some the furnace roar; <br />But church-bells open on the blast <br />Our loneliness, so long and vast.<br /><br />John Betjeman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/loneliness-243/
