TODAY HAS NEVER BEEN BEFORE

Today has never been before,
Nor will it come again;
Today, then, be Time’s paramour
To live the joy and pain.

Today achieves the ultimate
Of countless yesterdays;
Today, the only open gate
Of tomorrow’s unknown ways.

The living pulse-beats of the earth
Throb echoes through the brain;
The agonies of death and birth,
The balm of sun and rain.

Fling wide the windows to the dawn,
Sing to the silent street;
Scatter the dew-drops on the lawn
With tireless dancing feet.

For about the sundial plinth
Are clustered daffodils,
And, here and there, a hyacinth
Her heady fragrance spills.

And shyly, from the border plots,
The polyanthus peeps;
A blackbird trills where refuse rots
On last year’s compost heap.

With living pulse-beats of the earth,
The mind, receptive, throbs;
And, in the echoes of her mirth,
Are heard the whispered sobs.

Beauty and ugliness, to find
With mingled joy and pain;
And tears with laughter intertwined,
May not be known again.

Nor all of life, nor all of living,
Nor all of love and hate;
Nor all of trespass and forgiving
Today may propagate:

Live, then, the hour, and live the lover;
Absorb the joy and sorrow;
And, tired at last, slip slowly over
The dark edge of tomorrow.

 

 

Am reminded of this quotation:

"This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today... But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best."
 

Hermann Hesse: Klingsor’s Last Summer (1919)
 

Other pieces by my father:

Remembrance Day

Brick Horizons

Aberfan

Hiraeth

Goldie, the Golden Eagle escapes...

Namur King (Hub page, with photos)

 

***

Contents

Home

A-Z