Going up the Line

O consolation and refreshment breathed
From the young Spring with apple-blossom wreathed
Whose certain coming blesses
All life with token of immortality,
And from the ripe beauty and human tenderness
And reconcilement and tranquillity
Which are the spirit of all things grown old.
For now that I have seen
The curd-white hawthorn once again
Break out on the new green,
And through the iron gates in the long black wall
Have viewed across a screen
Of rosy apple-blossom the grey spire
And low red roofs and humble chimney-stacks,
And stood in spacious courtyards of old farms,
And heard green virgin wheat sing to the breeze,
And the drone of ancient worship rise and fall
In the dark church, and talked with simple folk
Of farm and village, dwelling near the earth,
Among earth’s ancient, elemental things;
I can with heart made bold
Go back into the ways of ruin and death
With step unflagging and with quiet breath,
For drawn from the hidden Spirit’s deepest well
I carry in my soul a power to quell
All ills and terrors such as these can hold.