Sing flutes of harvest Where men rejoice; Sing rounds of reapers,And my Love's voice. But when comes Winter And red fire roaring 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! Alas, Time stays, we go; Or else, were this not so, What need to chain the hours, For Youth were always ours? Time goes, you say?ah no! 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, 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, To praise your "rose " and "snow 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 ! TO A GREEK GIRL. WITH breath of thyme and bees that hum, Across the years you seem to come, Where'er you pass, where'er you go, Where'er you go, - where'er you pass, Not wholly dead! Autonoë! - How sweet with you on some green sod 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! |