The first round of daffodils have arrived; different varieties will bloom later.
They always bring to mind the following poem by Archibald MacLeish. His grandson, Keith MacLeish, and I were good friends in primary school. I went to their house many times, but never saw the famed poet himself.
Bronze
Change; the rains pass, the daffodils decay,
May’s thorn is withered soon,
And summer’s rose
Follows the morning of a summer’s day,
And with the moon
The sky pales, the wet wind blows,
And summer’s gone.
May’s thorn is withered soon,
And summer’s rose
Follows the morning of a summer’s day,
And with the moon
The sky pales, the wet wind blows,
And summer’s gone.
Change; and nothing changes.
There is no space
To seize the shifting fashion and cry Now.
Always the shadow ranges,
Always the hour estranges,
Always to-morrow’s morrow’s at the brow.
Only our hearts,
Only our hearts that hold to loveliness
With hot undoubting — where the swallow darts
Find an enduring grace,
And in a face
Unchanging beauty there —
Only our hearts, when beauty has impair,
And lovely strangeness is in death more strange,
Imagine change.
There is no space
To seize the shifting fashion and cry Now.
Always the shadow ranges,
Always the hour estranges,
Always to-morrow’s morrow’s at the brow.
Only our hearts,
Only our hearts that hold to loveliness
With hot undoubting — where the swallow darts
Find an enduring grace,
And in a face
Unchanging beauty there —
Only our hearts, when beauty has impair,
And lovely strangeness is in death more strange,
Imagine change.
– by Archibald MacLeish
