Chapter XVI

Ah, we are happy still and proud to live
When the last ray, that's seen and then is lost,
Brightens an instant the poor flowers of rime
Engraved upon our window by the frost.

Life leaps within us and hope sweeps us on;
And our garden, though it be now old,
Though its paths be strewn with fallen boughs,
Seems living, pure and dear and lit with gold.

Something invades our blood, intrepid, bright,
And urges us to incarnate again
Immense, full summer in the fervid kiss
That desperately we give each other then.