Summer Regrets

---

---

Breezes brush the morning by

the sun rises early, in July

Foxglove waves and grasses dry

Sweep across the wold and sky

and bees hum a song of morning

---

Singing sweetly in the air

wind rustles branches that bear

sweetened fruit whose scent is fair

and carries softly, like a prayer

into the porch, at dawning

---

the sheep graze in the meadow green

the sunrays' broken golden sheen

touches leaves, and dust is seen

floating, lazy, daybreak's dream

into haystacks for sheaving.

---

a moment of poetry, to be sure

but what he has had to endure

is no poem, and there is no cure

no antidote, and water pure

cannot absolve the grieving

---

a cup of tea, the morning's breath

to him, the icy hand of death

and softly, softly, like old Macbeth

Fair is foul, he whispereth

and nothing is fair, in dying.

---

Wild warblings from a swan

signify the end of dawn

he stares across the ragged lawn

seeing none but they who are gone

the leaves, it seems, are crying

---

memories, all kinds, diverse

slowly, faster, curses, curse!

they frolicked through the shepherd's purse--

he rode behind a battered hearse--

the wind, the wind, was blowing

---

childhood, free from thought and blame--

Death muted all the senses lame--

Youthful vigor, like a flame--

Death renders youthful fires tame

He sees the coffin lowering.

---

Ah, the youth, they have it all

the courage and wildness to heed a call

and march to battle, proud, tall

unafraid to fight and fall

and fall they will, repenting

---

What of youth? and what of brawn?

Nay, men are but kings and pawns

when wars take hold, the world's forgone

wasted, when battle lines are drawn

to beasts of madness unrelenting.

---