(THE SONG OF MEMORY AND TIME.)
TIME.
Spring-tide come and winter going;
Flower to seed, and seed to sowing;
Seed and harvest, reaping, mowing.
MEMORY.
Life beginning, and life ending;
Life his substance ever spending;
Time to life his little lending.
TIME.
Hark! the wingèd winds are calling;
Clouds the young year’s path appalling;
Blooms of spring like snow are falling.
MEMORY.
Snows of spring green earth bestrewing!
Wasted hopes must I be rueing,
Spring of life there’s no renewing.
And after these had ceased their song,
In divers weed, and changeful mien,
And glad, or sad, athwart my green:
Their fluttering robes of dark or pale,
Like leaves adrift on Autumn gale;
And they like shadows o’er the grass
Before my porch did singly pass,
But through the house their voices rang,
Tune-tongued like bells, as thus they sang:—