So Dear to My Heart

So would I die As then I saw him die, The friend, who like a god Into my darkling youth Threw lightning’s light and fire: Buoyant yet deep was he, Yea, in the battle’s strife With the happy dancer’s heart. Amid the warriors His was the lightest heart, Amid the conquerors His brow was dark with thought — He was a fate poised on his destiny: Unbending, casting thought into the past And future, such was he. Fearful beneath the weight of victory, Yet chanting, as both victory and death Came hand in hand to him. Commanding even as he lay in death, And his command that man annihilate. So would I die As then I saw him die, Victorious and destroying.

“How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.”