The Golden Year! poem – Alfred Austin

When piped the love-warm throstle shrill,

And all the air was laden

With scent of dew and daffodil,

I saw a youth and maiden,

Whose colour, Spring-like, came and fled,

‘Mong purple copses straying,

While birchen tassels overhead

Like marriage-bells kept swaying;

Filled with that joy that lingers still,

Which Eve brought out of Aiden,-

With scent of dew and daffodil

When all the air was laden.

When primrose banks turn pale and fade,

And meads wax deep and golden,

And in lush dale and laughing glade

Summer’s gay Court is holden,

Them, nestling close, again I saw,

Affianced girl and lover,

She looking up with eyes of awe

To burning gaze above her;

Playing anew the part oft played,

Sung by the poets olden,-

When primrose banks turn pale and fade,

And meads wax deep and golden.

When autumn woods began to glow,

And autumn sprays to shiver,

Once more I saw them walking slow,

By sedgy-rustling river.

The season’s flush was on her cheek,

The season’s sadness o’er him:

He stroked her hand, and bade her speak

Of all the love she bore him.

That only made her tears to flow,

And chill his heart to quiver,-

While autumn woods began to glow,

And autumn sprays to shiver.

When winter fields stretched stiff and stark,

And wintry winds shrilled eerie,

I saw him creep, alone, at dark,

Into the churchyard dreary.

He laid him down against the stone,

‘Neath which she aye lay sleeping,

Kissed its cold face with many a moan,

Then loudly fell a-weeping:

“Oh! let me in from lonely cark,

Or come thou back, my dearie!”-

But the wintry fields stretched stiff and stark,

And the wintry winds shrilled eerie!