- Love to his singer held a glistening leaf,
- And said: “The rose-tree and the apple-tree
- Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee;
- And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf
- Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief,
- Victorious Summer; aye, and 'neath warm sea
- Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably
- Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.
- All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love
- To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;
- But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang
- From those worse things the wind is moaning of.
- Only this laurel dreads no winter days:
- Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.”
~Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The last gift of love we can give someone is something so basic that it is overlooked. These are the words of praise. When everything about our physical beauty is gone: the alluring blooms of the rose or the golden wheat of the great harvest, we are left with our empty branches. This is the autumn of our life. But love doesn't die. The lover remembers his singer's love song. It is easy to comprehend that their love endures beyond death because something still glistens.
The above poem was set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Listen here.
The last gift of love we can give someone is something so basic that it is overlooked. These are the words of praise. When everything about our physical beauty is gone: the alluring blooms of the rose or the golden wheat of the great harvest, we are left with our empty branches. This is the autumn of our life. But love doesn't die. The lover remembers his singer's love song. It is easy to comprehend that their love endures beyond death because something still glistens.
The above poem was set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Listen here.
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