Mest leste ▸
Sara Teasdale
The Seine flows out of the mist
And into the mist again;
The trees lean over the water,
The small leaves fall like rain.
The leaves fall patiently,
Nothing remembers or grieves;
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of the leaves.
Milky and cold is the air,
The leaves float with the stream,
The river comes out of a sleep
And goes away in a dream.
How slow you move, old Time;
Walk a bit faster!
Old fool, I’m not your slave....
Beauty’s my master!
You hold me for a space....
What are you, Time?
A ghost, a thing of thought,
An easy rhyme.
Some day I shall again,
For all your scheming,
See Severn valley clouds
Like banners streaming.
And walk in Cranham lanes,
By Maisemore go....
But, fool, decrepit Fool,
You are SO SLOW!!!
My days are like sands; colourless,
Each matched to each, unerringly
They drift. The salt bleach of a sea
Has washed them clean and lustreless;
The teeth of rock on ragged strands
Have ground them to an even grey,
And one wind blows them a one way.
But Oh, the slow making of sands.
All is here; forgotten things
Mix with the unforgettable.
Granite blends with tinted shell.
And nothing so stable that it clings
To its stability. Had there
Been more of marble, more of gold.
The sands would hide in their grim hold
Nothing more wise, nothing more fair.
August is gone and now this is September,
Softer the sun in a cloudier sky ;
Yellow the leaves grow and apples grow golden,
Blackberries ripen and hedges undress.
Watch and you'll see the departure of summer,
Here is the end, this the last month of all :
Pause and look back and remember its promise,
All that looked open and easy in May.
Nothing will stay them, the seasons go onward,
Lightly the bright months fly out of my hand,
Softly the leading note calls a new octave ;
Autumn is coming and what have I done ?
Even as summer my young days go over,
No day to pause on and nowhere to rest :
Slowly they go but implacably onwards,
Ah ! and my dreams, alas, still they are dreams.
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,
Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?
When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death
Feel we its tide more rapid?
our work ending
what is time
are hands the new books
time is short but I am
like a poet living on ink
and sad stories
hope will not burden me again
with summer thoughts
I do not give much belief to the news
writ so simply
made of nothing
who expects every hour
to be troubled with fear
or hope
now is not in a day or two
I look after it
my little lock
where is our lost
and laced-up time
we broke up
about matters of money
intricate as an ear
my wife was within
time is too great
to make use of
hived in glass
you may be making honey
not love
a beautiful woman
cut off her own breast
out of convenience
time to rise up
we are not rusted
we need no one but one another
we are match-thin like the truth
I am plausible in my art
but I rust
I pass so much time
full of sleep