I

We wind wreaths of holly
For Randolph Bourne,
We hang bitter-sweet for remembrance;
We make a song of wind in pines ...

Wind in pines
Is winter's song, anthem of death,
And winter's child
Is gathered in the green hemlock arms
And sung to rest ...

Sung to rest ...
Waif of the storm
And world-bruised wanderer ...
Sung to rest ...

Sung to rest in our living hearts,
We receive him,
Winding our wreaths of holly
For Randolph Bourne.

2

Winter lasts long
And Death is our midnight sun
Rayless and red ...
Peoples are dying, and the world
Crumbles greyly ...

Autumn of civilization
Gorgeous with fruit
Dissolves in storm ...

And we,
Our dead about us,
Know the great darkening of the sun
And the frozen months,
Sounding our hemlock anthem,
Hanging our bitter-sweet ...

We walk in ruined woods
And among graves:
Earth is a burying ground ...
Nations go down, and dreams
And myths of peoples
And the forlorn hopes
Make one burial ...

And we
Came from the darkness, never to see
A Shakespeare's England,
A Sophocles' Athens,
But to live in the world's latter days,
In the great Age of Death,
Sons of Doomsday ...

He also came,
And walked this crooked world,
Its image.

3

In him the world's winter,
Ruined boughs and dishevelled cornfields,'
And the hunchback rocks
Grey on the hills,
Passed down our streets. . . .

Passed and is gone; and for him and the dying world
Our dirge sounds ...

4

Yet suddenly the wind catches up with glory
Our anthem, and peals wild hope,
Blowing of scattered bugles ...

And the wind cries: Look,
Pierce to the soul of the cripple
Where, immortal,
The spirit of youth goes on,
Which dies never, but shall be
The green and the garland of the Spring.

And the wind cries: Down
To the dissolution of the grave
The crippled body of the world must go
And die utterly,
That the seed may take April's rain
And bring Earth's blooming back.

5

Bitter-sweet, and a northwest wind
To sing his requiem,
Who was
Our Age,
And who becomes
An imperishable symbol of our ongoing,
For in himself
He rose above his body and came among us
Prophetic of the race,
The great hater
Of the dark human deformity
Which is our dying world,
The great lover
Of the spirit of youth
Which is our future's seed ...

In forced blooming we saw
Glimpses of awaited Spring.

6

And so, lifting our eyes, we hang
Bitter-sweet for remembrance
Of Randolph Bourne.

And winter's child
Is gathered in the green hemlock arms
And sung to rest ...

Sung to rest in our living hearts,
We receive the rejected,
Weaving a wreath of triumph
For Randolph Bourne.