The poem
The last year's leaves are on the beech: The twigs are black; the cold is dry; To deeps byond the deepest reach The Easter bells enlarge the sky. O ordered metal clatter-clang! Is yours the song the angels sang? You fill my heart with joy and grief - Belief! Belief! And unbelief... And, though you tell me I shall die, You say not how or when or why.
Indifferent the finches sing, Unheeding roll the lorries past: What misery will this year bring Now spring is in the air at last? For, sure as blackthorn bursts to snow, Cancer in some of us will grow, The tasteful crematorium door Shuts out for some the furnace roar; But church-bells open on the blast Our loneliness, so long and vast.
Reprinted with the permission of John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.
I can relate to this dark sombre poem. It sums up many feelings we all get at times. A sense of dark forboding and isolation, concealing a deep emtiness within the soul. I think when John wrote this these feelings were strong on his life.