Sing flutes of harvest But when comes Winter And ingle warm,— Sing first sad going Of friends that part; Then sing glad meeting,― And my Love's heart. THE PARADOX OF TIME. (A VARIATION ON RONSARD.) "Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame! Las! le temps non: mais NOUS nous en allons !" TIME goes, you say? Ah no! Τ Alas, Time stays, we go; Or else, were this not so, For Youth were always ours? Ours is the eyes' deceit Of men whose flying feet Lead through some landscape low; We pass, and think we see The earth's fixed surface flee : Alas, Time stays,—we go Once in the days of old, Your locks were curling gold, And mine had shamed the crow. Now, in the self-same stage, We've reached the silver age; Time goes, you say?—ah no! Once, when my voice was strong, I filled the woods with song To praise your 66 rose and " snow"; My bird, that sang, is dead; Alas, Time stays,—we go! See, in what traversed ways, The hopes we used to know; How far, how far, O Sweet, Lies in the even-glow! Alas, Time stays,—we go! WITH TO A GREEK GIRL. ITH breath of thyme and bees that hum, Across the years you seem to come,— Across the years with nymph-like head, And wind-blown brows unfilleted; A girlish shape that slips the bud In lines of unspoiled symmetry; A girlish shape that stirs the blood With pulse of Spring, Autonoë! Where'er you pass,-where'er you go, Not wholly dead!--Autonoë! How sweet with you on some green sod N To watch across the stricken chords In vain,-in vain! The years divide : From under-lands of Memory, A dream of Form in days of Thought,— A dream,-a dream, Autonoë! |