Poem A Day Open in app

Classic poem

Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow

by William Morris

Love is enough: have no thought for to-morrow

If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain,

Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow:

For as it was once so it shall be again.

Ye shall cry out for death as ye stretch forth in vain

Feeble hands to the hands that would help but they may not,

Cry out to deaf ears that would hear if they could;

Till again shall the change come, and words your lips say not

Your hearts make all plain in the best wise they would

And the world ye thought waning is glorious and good:

And no morning now mocks you and no nightfall is weary,

The plains are not empty of song and of deed:

The sea strayeth not, nor the mountains are dreary;

The wind is not helpless for any man's need,

Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.

O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden,

All battle is hushed for this even at least;

And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden

To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast

Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased.

Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing!

For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live

The dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing,

The dreams of the night with the kisses they give,

The dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive.

Ah, what shall we say then, but that earth threatened often

Shall live on for ever that such things may be,

That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften,

And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea,

That earth's garden may bloom round my love's feet and me?

naturelovedeathhopesolitudegriefwaridentity
Public domain/Source

Read a new poem every day.

Poem A Day turns classic poetry into a quiet daily ritual, with saved poems and a calm reader built for returning.