Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 20

In a land and season of corn and vine I pledged you a health from a beaker of mine But halfway filled to the lip's edge yet With hope for honey and song for wine.

Nine years have risen and eight years set Since there by the wellspring our hands on it met: And the pledge of my songs that were then to be, I could wonder not, friend, though a friend should forget.

For life's helm rocks to the windward and lee, And time is as wind, and as waves are we; And song is as foam that the sea-winds fret, Though the thought at its heart should be deep as the sea.