I know thee well; long have I spent,
Twentyscore hours above the angels,
O'er the
fields where
nature's fruit has sent
Shoots into the air:
white and
vermillion and
scarlet selves
Lost in thy memory, as becomes a friend;
Perhaps not a
lover, yet greater still,
For love is called by degree, not the names we tend,
And, beating, our hearts bear no malice, nor hold no ill,
Only tidings of good fortune that we bless,
As letters are to lovers, so gestures to great friends:
The hope of a saviour when in distress,
And the little moments that life sends,
Have not we played, beneath the oak,
Many a merry game, in
company and
in solace?
Laughing at a giggle, giggling at the croak,
Of the ancient frog beside life's pond, cold and heartless, callous,
The summer days had passed
With a speed most frightening and most slow,
When, arm in arm, we strolled along the grass,
Following the wind, wherever it chose to go,
And the bitter winters lost their cold,
The fires blazing grew warmer still,
When butterflies we would chase (ignoring thy mother's scold)
And wander up the path, along the sloping hill,
The sadness of the rain you dispersed,
The despairing thump of the raindrops
flung
To oceans vast and wide, interspersed
With heavy jungles, where the treetops sung,
Their leaves unfurled, basking in the morning sun,
As ray upon ray their verdant selves revealed,
Who knows what magic cast, what enchantment had been sprung?
Their gleaming hands untouched, their glorious colours, unwounded, healed,
So were we, within our
prime,
Twin siblings in nature, though not by
blood,
How quickly do the years go, how fleeting is the time!
That tide and memory drown us, in their overwhelming flood,
And
end is end in name, though oft the
beginning,
Of laughter and soft tears past, and memories quietly fading,
Though sometimes when I listen, I hear the angels singing -
In your voice, your eyes, your smiling mouth - oft what you are saying,
Distances cannot divide what by time is but multiplied;
Years and years long since have perished, their footprints on eroding sand,
And here on the golden road I wait, right by the side,
For carriage or vehicle to pause, and I to take your hand,
And lift upon thy failing feet, an aging soul:
From
lowly dust we come, as
lordly ashes we go,
Hand in hand, we march, upon this golden road,
To death's most noble door - to future and futures unknown...