The Home Book of Verse Volume I Part 91

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 pa.s.s, 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 "rose" and "snow"; My bird, that sang, is dead; Where are your roses fled?

Alas, Time stays--we go!

See, in what traversed ways, What backward Fate delays The hopes we used to know; Where are our old desires?-- Ah, where those vanished fires?

Time goes, you say?--ah no!

How far, how far, O sweet, The past behind our feet Lies in the even-glow!

Now, on the forward way, Let us fold hands, and pray; Alas, Time stays,--we go!

Austin Dobson [1840-1921]

AGE

Snow and stars, the same as ever In the days when I was young,-- But their silver song, ah never, Never now is sung!

Cold the stars are, cold the earth is, Everything is grim and cold!

Strange and drear the sound of mirth is-- Life and I are old!

William Winter [1836-1917]

OMNIA SOMNIA

Dawn drives the dreams away, yet some abide.

Once, in a tide of pale and sunless weather, I dreamed I wandered on a bare hillside, When suddenly the birds sang all together.

Still it was Winter, even in the dream; There was no leaf nor bud nor young gra.s.s springing; The skies shone cold above the frost-bound stream: It was not Spring, and yet the birds were singing.

Blackbird and thrush and plaintive willow-wren, Chaffinch and lark and linnet, all were calling; A golden web of music held me then, Innumerable voices, rising, falling.

O, never do the birds of April sing More sweet than in that dream I still remember: Perchance the heart may keep its songs of Spring Even through the wintry dream of life's December.

Rosamund Marriott Watson [1863-1911]

THE YEAR'S END

Full happy is the man who comes at last Into the safe completion of his year; Weathered the perils of his spring, that blast How many blossoms promising and dear!

And of his summer, with dread pa.s.sions fraught That oft, like fire through the ripening corn, Blight all with mocking death and leave distraught Loved ones to mourn the ruined waste forlorn.

But now, though autumn gave but harvest slight, Oh, grateful is he to the powers above For winter's sunshine, and the lengthened night By hearth-side genial with the warmth of love.

Through silvered days of vistas gold and green Contentedly he glides away, serene.

Timothy Cole [1852-1931]

AN OLD MAN'S SONG

Ye are young, ye are young, I am old, I am old; And the song has been sung And the story been told.

Your locks are as brown As the mavis in May, Your hearts are as warm As the sunshine to-day, But mine white and cold As the snow on the brae.

And Love, like a flower, Is growing for you, Hands clasping, lips meeting, Hearts beating so true; While Fame like a star In the midnight afar Is flashing for you.

For you the To-come, But for me the Gone-by, You are panting to live, I am waiting to die; The meadow is empty, No flower groweth high, And naught but a socket The face of the sky.

Yea, how so we dream, Or how bravely we do; The end is the same, Be we traitor or true: And after the bloom And the pa.s.sion is past, Death cometh at last.

Richard Le Gallienne [1866-

SONGS OF SEVEN

Seven Times One.--EXULTATION

There's no dew left on the daisies and clover, There's no rain left in heaven; I've said my "seven times" over and over, Seven times one are seven.

I am old, so old, I can write a letter; My birthday lessons are done; The lambs play always, they know no better; They are only one times one.

O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing And shining so round and low; You were bright! ah, bright! but your light is failing,-- You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven That G.o.d has hidden your face?

I hope if you have, you will soon be forgiven, And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow, You've powdered your legs with gold!

O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow, Give me your money to hold!