The End of Summer

Here is a melancholy little poem about the end of summer and the death of love, by ex-poet laureate C. Day Lewis:

Hornpipe

Now the peak of summer’s past, the sky is overcast
And the love we thought would last for an age seems deceit:
Paler is the guelder since the day we first beheld her
In blush beside the elder, drifting sweet, drifting sweet.

Oh quickly they fade – the sunny esplanade,
Speed-boats, wooden spades and the dunes where we’ve lain:
Others will be lying amid the sea-pinks, sighing
For love to be undying and they’ll sigh in vain.

It’s hurrah for each night we have spent our love so lightly
And never dreamed there might be no more to spend at all.
It’s goodbye to every lover who thinks he’ll live in clover
All his life, for noon is over soon and night-dews fall.

If I could keep you there with the berries in your hair
And your lacy fingers fair as the may, sweet may,
I’d have no heart to do it, for to stay love is to rue it
And the harder we pursue it, the faster it’s away.