Dust-hued and bloody your autumnal lives
That shrivel blasted by the breath of War,
And the bereavéd tree sad music weaves,
The Gardener gathers up your lives.
Those dead leaves waken in the weary earth,
Making the barren warm and rich with life,
And give to nobler flowers a glorious birth;
And your dead lives are dead alone in name,
For you shall live anew after the strife,
And light in future hearts a sacred flame.
Joy
JOY has been ours a little, Joy divine;
Joy filling all things, mastering our hearts;
Joy as intoxication of red wine;
Joy leaping o'er the breach when Love departs.
Ah! we were wild with this glad ecstasy,
And danced, and danced delirious in dreams,
Through the dim-gleaming Gate of Ivory,
Out of the World that Is to that which Seems.
And we did laugh in this great Joy of ours,
And all the world re-echoed to our cry.
And Time was nothing; days were short-lived hours,
And we Immortal as the days went by.
For Joy, O Love, had made my heart a feather:
O I am glad we've known this Joy together!
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