5. Summer in Exile
Summer to a strange land,
Is into exile gone,
The forest trees are bare
Of their gay song.
The forest boughs are wan,
Deflowered the field,
Withered that which was fair,
Naked and bare,
The happy greenwood is,
Stripped by the cruel cold,
And silence grieves the air,
For all the birds are into exile gone.
But upon love,
Love that itself is fire.
Now power hath the cold,
For love's desire
Kindleth afresh
that which was dead and cold
In winter's hold.
I suffer, yea, I die,
Yet this mine agony
I count as all bliss,
Since death is life again
Upon her lips.
translated by Helen Waddell
(with permission from Miss Mollie Martin and Stanbrook Abbey)
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