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!" IME goes, you say? Ah no! TIME 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, 66 To praise your rose " and " 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 ! Now, on the forward way, Alas, Time stays,—we go snow "; WITH TO A GREEK GIRL. TH 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! |