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Collected Poems

Kowhai

Kowhai

When the candles burn again in the kowhai tree,
I shall return, remembering older springs
when the sky was a blue pool where dreamily
clouds floated like silver swans with folded wings.

I shall return, remembering how Love
fulfils in the spring her immortal trust,
and builds her leafy temple in the kowhai grove,
scorning the dull remonstrance of the dust.

I shall lie on the cliffs under the small gold flowers,
and smell wild honeysuckle, and hear the chime
of the waves, like bells ringing in the shadowy towers
of some grey village of the olden time.

I shall return. But oh, the spring will falter …
yield her green faith to summer's unbelief,
and the kowhai will darken the candles on her altar,
and strew on the grey winds her golden grief.