Sorrow’s Importunity poem – Alfred Austin

When Sorrow first came wailing to my door,

April rehearsed the madrigal of May;

And, as I ne’er had seen her face before,

I kept on singing, and she went her way.

When next came Sorrow, life was winged with scent

Of glistening laurel and full-blossoming bay:

I asked, but understood not, what she meant,

Offered her flowers, and she went her way.

When yet a third time Sorrow came, we met

In the ripe silence of an Autumn day:

I gave her fruit I had gathered, and she ate,

Then seemed to go unwillingly away.

When last came Sorrow, around barn and byre

Wind-carven snow, the Year’s white sepulchre, lay.

“Come in,” I said, “and warm you by the fire.”

And there she sits, and never goes away.