The Window Overlooking The Harbour

A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)

Sad is the Evening: all the level sand

Lies left and lonely, while the restless sea,

Tired of the green caresses of the land,

Withdraws into its own infinity.

But still more sad this white and chilly Dawn

Filling the vacant spaces of the sky,

While little winds blow here and there forlorn

And all the stars, weary of shining, die.

And more than desolate, to wake, to rise,

Leaving the couch, where softly sleeping still,

What through the past night made my heaven, lies;

And looking out across the window sill

See, from the upper window’s vantage ground,

Mankind slip into harness once again,

And wearily resume his daily round

Of love and labour, toil and strife and pain.

How the sad thoughts slip back across the night:

The whole thing seems so aimless and so vain.

What use the raptures, passion and delight,

Burnt out; as though they could not wake again.

The worn-out nerves and weary brain repeat

The question: Whither all these passions tend;–

This curious thirst, so painful and so sweet,

So fierce, so very short-lived, to what end?

Even, if seeking for ourselves, the Race,

The only immortality we know,–

Even if from the flower of our embrace

Some spark should kindle, or some fruit should grow,

What were the use? the gain, to us or it,

That we should cause another You or Me,–

Another life, from our light passion lit,

To suffer like ourselves awhile and die.

What aim, what end indeed? Our being runs

In a closed circle. All we know or see

Tends to assure us that a thousand Suns,

Teeming perchance with life, have ceased to be.

Ah, the grey Dawn seems more than desolate,

And the past night of passion worse than waste,

Love but a useless flower, that soon or late,

Turns to a fruit with bitter aftertaste.

Youth, even Youth, seems futile and forlorn

While the new day grows slowly white above.

Pale and reproachful comes the chilly Dawn

After the fervour of a night of love.

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• Two Hundred Years After by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• Twelve Months After by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
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• Tree and Sky by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• Together by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• Today by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To Victory by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To My Brother by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To Leonide Massine in ‘Cleopatra’ by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To His Dead Body by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To Any Dead Officer by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To a Very Wise Man by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• To a Childless Woman by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• Thrushes by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
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• Their Frailty by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Working Party by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Tombstone-Maker by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Road by Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon

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