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Poems, 1914-1919

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<h3>DIFFUGERE NIVES, 1917</h3> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> To J. C. S. </div> <div class="stanza"> The snows have fled, the hail, the lashing rain, Before the Spring. The grass is starred with buttercups again, The blackbirds sing. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now spreads the month that feast of lovely things We loved of old. Once more the swallow glides with darkling wings Against the gold. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now the brown bees about the peach trees boom Upon the walls; And far away beyond the orchard’s bloom The cuckoo calls. </div> <div class="stanza"> The season holds a festival of light, For you, for me, The shadows are abroad, there falls a blight On each green tree. </div> <div class="stanza"> And every leaf unfolding, every flower Brings bitter meed; Beauty of the morning and the evening hour Quickens our need.{20} </div> <div class="stanza"> All is reborn, but never any Spring Can bring back this; Nor any fullness of midsummer bring The voice we miss. </div> <div class="stanza"> The smiling eyes shall smile on us no more; The laughter clear, Too far away on the forbidden shore, We shall not hear. </div> <div class="stanza"> Bereft of these until the day we die, We both must dwell; Alone, alone, and haunted by the cry: “Hail and farewell!” </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet when the scythe of Death shall near us hiss Through the cold air, Then on the shuddering marge of the abyss They will be there. </div> <div class="stanza"> They will be there to lift us from sheer space And empty night; And we shall turn and see them face to face In the new light. </div> <div class="stanza"> So shall we pay the unabated price Of their release, And found on our consenting sacrifice Their lasting peace.{21} </div> <div class="stanza"> The hopes that fall like leaves before the wind, The baffling waste, And every earthly joy that leaves behind A mortal taste. </div> <div class="stanza"> The uncompleted end of all things dear, The clanging door Of Death, forever loud with the last fear, Haunt them no more. </div> <div class="stanza"> Without them the awakening world is dark With dust and mire; Yet as they went they flung to us a spark, A thread of fire. </div> <div class="stanza"> To guide us while beneath the sombre skies Faltering we tread, Until for us like morning stars shall rise The deathless dead. </div> </div></div> {22} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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