William Kerr

Half-awake I walked A dimly-seen sweet hawthorn lane Until sleep came;

When I seek the world through For images of you, Though apple-blossom is glad

Chestnut candles are lit again For the dead that died in spring: Dead lovers walk the orchard ways,

Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon Hardly remembers any summer gone: And never again the Kentish elms shall see

Secret and wise as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon

Mere living wears the most of life away: Even the lilies take thought for many things, For frost in April and for drought in May,

How shall the living be comforted for the dead When they are gone, and nothing's left behind But a vague music of the words they said

Under vague silver moonlight The trees are lovely and ghostly, In the pale blue of the night