TO ANDREW CHATTO
It is your thin, ungracious wine that runs
Within a year of bottling, to your tongue,
The noblest wine is somewhat harsh when young;
Lay it aside for many moons and suns,
Send it, if so you will, its "wander-year,"
A-battling with the ocean's storm and strife,
Then open it, when ripe are wine and life,
And see what mellow sunshine you have there.
Here is another year to crown that head
So full of years and honour, dear old friend,
Whose wisdom makes a constant, quiet balm
For tricks and trials of life, whose age doth blend
Young-heartedness with philosophic calm,
And sunshine on this generation shed.
NOVEMBER
There is a gleam of sunshine on the earth
After so many weary days of rain,
A break of yellowing clouds, which offers plain
The sun's veiled disc (a very shadow-birth,
But still the sun, with sun's November worth);
The sky is of a Turner lived again,
Such colours through the misty greyness gain
They almost seem to touch with spring the earth.
How should we not be glad, when this one day
Out of the saddest of all months, appears
Suddenly beautiful? A single ray
Of sunlight strikes through cloud, and clears
The whole drear countryside of grey;
So may one word dispel a cloud of tears.