For Now Comes Summer / Louis Golding

For Now Comes Summer

For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.
And I must add up figures all the day.
And I must drive a tram the whole day long.
And I must make a living out of words.
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds;
And in green fields the little lambs will play,
Brown birds will lift so loud a storm of song,
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.

For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.
And I must make munitions right away.
And I must check the biscuits at the base.
And I must plan to slaughter men in herds,
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.
My brother's lying quiet on his face.
And I must sit and wait to die to-day,
For now comes Summer with a thousand birds.

~~
Louis Golding (1895-1958)
from Sorrow of War, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Louis Golding biography