Sunday Poetry - Virginia Graham

Something a little more melancholy & nostalgic this week. This poem is called Sunset. The cosy  feeling of the end of the day darkens as the thought of the war returns.

There's nothing so sad in the world as to stand alone
On a velvet lawn at the end of a summer's day,
Watching the purple shadows fall,
Hearing the distant ping of a tennis-ball,
The sound of happy voices calling 'Away!'
A thrush singing. A rose full blown.

Indoors they are clinking the spoons, the baths are run;
Nanny looks cheerfully out of the window at the sky,
It will be fine, she says, to-morrow.
Oh, but the strange unfathomable sorrow
Of croquet mallets leaning on hoops awry,
And crumpled cushions crimsoned by the sun.

They will come home by way of the gooseberry-nets.
No spell can bind them who are young and brave
To this most melancholy hour,
When hope dies, and fear busts into flower,
When the heart illogically seeks its grave,
Stabbed by incomprehensible regrets.