The lower metres of the year,
When nature's laugh is done, —
The Revelations of the book
Whose Genesis is June.
IV. TIME AND ETERNITY.
I.
This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond,
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies don't know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
II.
We learn in the retreating
How vast an one
Was recently among us.
A perished sun
Endears in the departure
How doubly more
Than all the golden presence
It was before!
III.
They say that 'time assuages,' —
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.
Time is a test of trouble,
But not a remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no malady.