What the Bird Sang Early in the Year

I heard in Addison's Walk a bird sing clear
'This year the summer will come true. This year. This year

'Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.

'This year time's nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.

'This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.

'This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.

'Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick, quick! --the gates are drawn apart.'

~C.S. Lewis, Poems (1st published in The Oxford Magazine, May 1938)

___________________________

Link of the day: Read about Oxford's Centenary Stone, placed near Addison's Walk in memory of C.S. Lewis.

On this day:

1936 The Allegory of Love is published by Clarendon Press, Oxford.

A brief quotation from The Allegory of Love:

"Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations; being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still."