Spring Sadness
(Virelai.)
As I sat sorrowing,
Love came and bade me sing
A joyous song and meet,
For see (said he) each thing
Is merry for the Spring,
And every bird doth greet
The break of blossoming,
That all the woodlands ring
Unto the young hours’ feet.
Wherefore put off defeat
And rouse thee to repeat
The chimes of merles that go,
With flutings shrill and sweet,
In every green retreat,
The tune of streams that flow
And mark the fair hours’ beat,
With running ripples fleet
And breezes soft and low.
For who should have, I trow,
Such joyance in the glow
And gladness of the May,—
In all sweet bells that blow,
In death of winter’s woe
And birth of Springtide gay,
When in woodwalk and row
Hand-linked the lovers go,—
As he to whom alway
God giveth day by day
To set to roundelay
Life’s sad and sunny hours,—
To weave into a lay
Life’s golden years and grey,
Its sweet and bitter flowers,—
To sweep with hands that stray
In many a devious way
Its harp of sun and showers?
Nor in this life of ours,
Whereon the sky oft lowers,
Is any lovelier thing
Than in the wild wood bowers
The cloud of green that towers,
The blithe birds welcoming
The vivid vernal hours
Among the painted flowers
And all the pomp of Spring.
True, life is on the wing,
And all the birds that sing,
And all the flowers that be
Amid the glow and ring,
The pomp and glittering
Of Spring’s sweet pageantry,
Have here small sojourning,
And all our bright hours bring
Death nearer, as they flee.
Yet this thing learn of me;
The sweet hours fair and free
That we have had of yore,
The fair things we did see
The linkéd melody
Of waves upon the shore
That rippled in their glee,
Are not lost utterly,
Though they return no more.
But in the true heart’s core
Thought treasures evermore
The tune of birds and breeze:
And there the slow years store
The flowers our dead Springs wore
And scent of blossomed leas:
There murmurs o’er and o’er
The sound of woodlands hoar
With newly burgeoned trees.
So for the sad soul’s ease
Remembrance treasures these
Against Time’s harvesting,
That so, when mild Death frees
The soul from Life’s disease
Of strife and sorrowing,
In glass of memories
The new hope looks and sees
Through Death a brighter Spring.
John Payne.