Page:Poems and ballads (IA balladspoems00swinrich).pdf/255



Some nine years gone, as we dwelt together In the sweet hushed heat of the south French weather Ere autumn fell on the vine‑tressed hills Or the season had shed one rose‑red feather,

Friend, whose fame is a flame that fills All eyes it lightens and hearts it thrills With joy to be born of the blood which bred From a land that the grey sea girds and chills

The heart and spirit and hand and head Whose might is as light on a dark day shed, On a day now dark as a land's decline Where all the peers of your praise are dead,