TO J. F. W.

We've touched the borderland of death and life

And come back to the primroses again,

And see with different eyes the slanting rain

Buffet the larches in a short-lived strife;

With different eyes, for we have looked on death,

And know what life is for; we felt the hand

Of that sad Lady of the other Land,

And now, with her released, we draw our breath.

Life is for gladness, not for mulish days

Between the galling shafts of commonplace.

See, now, the willow tassels all ablaze

Against the background of the windy blue!

And in the dusk the crocus glimmers through

The footsteps of Persephone we trace.