ENGLAND — APRIL, 1918

By Francis Brett Young

Last night the North flew at the throat of Spring

With spite to tear her greening banners down,

Tossing the elm-tree's tender tassels brown,

The virgin blossom of sloe burdening

With colder snow; beneath his frosty sting

Patient, the newly-wakened woods were bowed

By drowned fields where stormy waters flowed:

Yet, on the thorn, I heard a blackbird sing....

‘ Too late, too late,’ he sang,‘ this wintry spite;

For molten snow will feed the springing grass:

The tide of life, it floweth with the year.’

O England, England, thou that standest upright

Against the tide of death, the bad days pass:

Know, by this miracle, that summer is near.