Yet would I not call down an envious doom
On any of the future's sunny days;
'Twere ill in me to tempt the Fates, I trow;
But, rather, as one pleading, kneels and prays:—
"Stay but thy hand, O Time! and pitying grant
Us of thy sunny sheaves of Harvest Day;
Hours brimmed with sweetness and all glad with love,—
That, passing on, we scarce may heed the way
"That erst was strewn with sharpest stones and weeds;
So lead us gently, Time, we may not miss