To praise the months against your rival song;
And ere the sun had westered ten degrees
Our rhyme had brought him thro’ the Zodiac.
Have you remembered?’—Basil answer’d back,
’Guest of my solace, how could I forget?
Years fly as months that seem’d in youth so long.
The precious life that, like indifferent gold
Is disregarded in its worth to hold
Some jewel of love that God therein would set,
It passeth and is gone.’—’And yet not all’