War and Love/Leave-Taking

by Richard Aldington

For works with similar titles, see Leave-Taking.

 

LEAVE-TAKING

Will the world still live for you
When I am gone?

Will the straight garden poppy
Still spout blood from its green throat
Before your feet?
Will the five cleft petals of the campion
Still be rose-coloured,
Like five murdered senses, for you?

Will your trees still live,
Thrust metallic bosses of leafage
From the hill-side in the summer light;
Will the leaves sway and grow darker,
Rustle, swirl in the gales;
Decay into gold and orange,
Crinkle and shrivel,
And fall silently at last
On to frosty grass?

Will there be sun for you;
The lines of near hills
Cut out in thin blue steel
Against red haze?

Will there be silence?

Will not even the clean acrid sea
Turn stale upon your lips?

Will the world die for you
As it dies for me?