known unto God

There was rapture of Spring in the morning

When we told our love in the wood,

For you were the Spring in my heart, dear lad,

And I vowed that my life was good.

But there's winter of war in the evening,
And lowering cluds overhead,
There's wailing of wind in the chimney nook,
And I vow that my life lies dead.

For the sun may shine on the meadow lands,
And the dog-rose bloom in the lanes,
But I've only weeds in my garden, lad,
Wild weeds that are rank with the rains.

One solace there is for me, sweet but faint,
As it floats on the wind of the years,
A whisper that Spring is the last true thing,
And that triumph is born of tears.

It comes from a garden of other days,
And an echoing voice that cries,
"Behold I am alive for evermore,
And in Me shall the dead arise."

G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929)