Fruit

Now with the threat growing still greater within me,

    The Church dead that was hopelessly over-restored,

The fruit picked from these yellowing Worcestershire orchards

    What is left to me, Lord?

To wait until next year’s bloom at the end of the garden

    Foams to the Malvern Hills, like an inland sea,

And to know that its fruit, dropping in autumn stillness,

    May have outlived me.