Читать книгу Poems, 1908-1919 - Drinkwater John - Страница 23

IMMORTALITY

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I

When other beauty governs other lips,

And snowdrops come to strange and happy springs,

When seas renewed bear yet unbuilded ships,

And alien hearts know all familiar things,

When frosty nights bring comrades to enjoy

Sweet hours at hearths where we no longer sit,

When Liverpool is one with dusty Troy,

And London famed as Attica for wit …

How shall it be with you, and you, and you,

How with us all who have gone greatly here

In friendship, making some delight, some true

Song in the dark, some story against fear?

Shall song still walk with love, and life be brave,

And we, who were all these, be but the grave?


II

No; lovers yet shall tell the nightingale

Sometimes a song that we of old time made,

And gossips gathered at the twilight ale

Shall say, “Those two were friends,” or, “Unafraid

Of bitter thought were those because they loved

Better than most.” And sometimes shall be told

How one, who died in his young beauty, moved,

As Astrophel, those English hearts of old.

And the new seas shall take the new ships home

Telling how yet the Dymock orchards stand,

And you shall walk with Julius at Rome,

And Paul shall be my fellow in the Strand;

There in the midst of all those words shall be

Our names, our ghosts, our immortality.


Poems, 1908-1919

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