Last of the Summer Wine

Now all of his summer's gone those urgent days when he was young those girls he loved, but soon moved on to drink his summer wine now perfumes of hearth and vine of meadows when the rain has gone these friends with their black armbands on salute his summer wine the memories he left to me here in my cup of sweet short days, bitter days now all drunk up The fullness of the life that slipped The other day all mortal pain Free now to roam fresh hills and lanes And taste eternal wine.