SONG BE DELICATE by John Shaw Neilson

Let your song be delicate.
   The skies declare
No war — the eyes of lovers
   Wake everywhere.


Let your voice be delicate.
   How faint a thing
Is Love, little Love crying
   Under the Spring.


Let your song be delicate.
   The flowers can hear:
Too well they know the tremble,
   Of the hollow year.


Let your voice be delicate.
   The bees are home:
All their day's love is sunken
   Safe in the comb.


Let your song be delicate.
   Sing no loud hymn:
Death is abroad . . . Oh, the black season!
   The deep — the dim!