Then, you will say, not a feverish minute Strained the weak heart, and the wavering knee, O the great days, in the distance enchanted, How we discoursed of them, one with another, Loved the ally with the heart of a brother, Forty years on, growing older and older, Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder, God gives us bases to guard or beleaguer, Games to play out, whether earnest or fun, Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager, Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on! Follow up! Follow up! Edward Ernest Bowen [1836-1901] DREGS THE fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof, (This is the end of every song man sings!) The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain, Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain; And health and hope have gone the way of love Into the drear oblivion of lost things. Ghosts go along with us until the end; This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend. Ernest Dowson (1867-1900] The Paradox of Time THE PARADOX OF TIME A VARIATION ON RONSARD "Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame! TIME goes, you.say? Ah no! Or else, were this not so, Time goes, you say?—ah no! Ours is the eyes' deceit Of men whose flying feet We Lead through some landscape low; 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; Alas, Time stays-we go! See, in what traversed ways, The hopes we used to know; Time goes, you say?-ah no! 423 How far, how far, O Sweet, Now, on the forward way, Alas, Time stays,- —we go! AGE SNOW and stars, the same as ever 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. Still it was Winter, even in the dream; There was no leaf nor bud nor young grass springing; Blackbird and thrush and plaintive willow-wren, 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] An Old Man's Song 425 THE YEAR'S END FULL happy is the man who comes at last Timothy Cole [1852 AN OLD MAN'S SONG YE are young, ye are young, Your locks are as brown As the sunshine to-day, As the snow on the brae. And Love, like a flower, In the midnight afar Is flashing for you. For you the To-come, But for me the Gone-by, No flower groweth high, Yea, howso we dream, Be we traitor or true: And after the bloom And the passion 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, I am old, so old, I can write a letter; The lambs play always, they know no better; 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 God has hidden your face? I hope if you have, you will soon be forgiven, And shine again in your place. |