Sentimentality

Last night I heard a priest's whistle echo through an archway of one of the buildings at St. Mike's. I was walking Dexter at the time, and the whole quad smelled of cut grass and lilacs. For various (and ludicrous) reasons, I wished, with all the same vigour of the faith of that man, that God would somehow return me to 1999.

And now, some Edna St. Vincent Millay:

THREE SONGS OF SHATTERING

I
The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,--it must have been
Very pretty.

II
Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs play;
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
But not in the old way!

I recall a place
Where a plum-tree grew;
There you lifted up your face,
And the blossoms covered you.

If the little birds sing,
And the little lambs play,
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
But not in the old way!

III
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was going--ah, spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.

All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!