In Memory Of Douglas Vernon Cow
THIS POEM, DEDICATED TO HIS MOTHER.
To twilight heads comes Death as comes a friend.
As with the gentle fading of the year
Fades rose, folds leaf, falls fruit, and to their end
Unquestioning draw near,
Their flowering over, and their fruiting done,
Fulfilled and finished and going down with the sun.
But for June's heart there is no comforting
When her full-throated rose
Still quick with buds, still thrilling to the air,
By some stray wind is tossed,
her swelling grain that goes
Heavy to harvesting
In a black gale is lost,
And her round grape that purpled to the wine
Is pinched by some chance frost.
Ah, then cry out for that last, lovely rose,
For the stricken wheat, and for the finished vine!
Such were you who sleep now, who have foregone
So many of Life's rich secrets almost learned;
Winning so much, so much yet unwon,
Yet to be dared, to discover, to reveal.
Quick still with ardour, hand still at the wheel
On wide and unsailed seas, eyes turning still
Towards the morning, while the keen brain burned
To the imperative will.
Upon your summer Death seems to set his heel,
Writes on the page 'No more.'
And brings the sign of sunset, shuts the door
And the house is dark and the tired mourners sleep.
Yet says he too, 'Though quiet at last you lie,
'And have done with laughter and strife and joy and care,
'You have honour with your peace; and still you keep
'Fullness of life and of felicity.
'You have seen the grail. What need you of grey hair?
'There are those who daily die,
'Who have long out lived their welcome in the world,
'Who are old and sad and tired and fain to cease
'From the crowded earth, and the hours in tumult whirled,
'Urgent and vain. You are not such as these
'Who have striven for laurels, and never knew the shade
'Upon their brows, who would persuade the rose,
'And never have come near it; till the head
'Bows and the heart breaks, and the spirit knows
'Only its failure, dim and featureless,--
'Its weariness of all things dreamed and done,
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poem by Muriel Stuart
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