Stealing Summer
My work last night was delightful
As a result of grace and talent [in] late afternoon,
[When] a man was the same colour - being loved,
4 A valiant one amid a thick canopy - as a black bush.
A genial cock-thrush
Above my head on a green canopy
[Was] sending, product of the memory's searching,
8 A name of good news, heart into me.
'I know some good and worthy advice for you
[For] the long days of May: if you want to, take it,
And sit under a castle of birch -
12 God knows that there was no better house -
And under your head a pillow
Of fine feathers, seemly feathers of [the] trees,
And above your head - my birch-tree -
16 A fair shining fortress of coverlets.'
I am not ill, I don't wish to be so,
I am not healthy, by God above,
I am not dead, by noble Peter,
20 And God decrees that I am not alive.
If I were either - pleasant confession -
It would be a gift of grace from Christ of heaven,
To die bereft of greeting
24 Or to live as a splendid man in love.
There was a time - it has come to an end,
Ah me! - when I was alive and well,
When Christ, the high Lord, was not allowed
28 To steal summer from me!