Poems (Kennedy)/The Coming and Going

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

THE COMING AND THE GOING

WITH spendthrift gold of daffodils,
    With red of a rose,
With purple pomp of shadows where
    The lilac grows—

With kingly scarlet in the hedge
    Where sumacs burn,
With gray of ashes scattered far
    From Time's inverted urn—

With anthems glad from feathered choirs,
    Bluebird and lark,
With five low notes the thrushes sing
    Before the dark—

Thus came the year now dead and gone,
    With color and with song
And the crystal promise of soul to soul
    To do no wrong!

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How did you use the free-gift year,
    Now but a wraith?
Did you hold its pledge of good in your heart
    And keep the faith?

How did you sepulchre this sweet year,
    Gone back to God—
With a rose of love on its shriven breast,
    Or only a clod?

For records you leave with the vanished years
    Will witness true
When out of the dusk the Master calls
    The soul of you.