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?
Life's stages rush faster as we age, a melancholic mirror to the query
Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away --
Yesterday is Poetry --
'Tis Philosophy --
Yesterday is mystery --
Where it is Today
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away
Yesterday eludes our grasp the moment we speculate, capturing time's fleeting mystery
Consulting summer's clock,
But half the hours remain.
I ascertain it with a shock --
I shall not look again.
The second half of joy
Is shorter than the first.
The truth I do not dare to know
I muffle with a jest.
Half of joy remains yet shocks us, and the second half is shorter—exact anxiety
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stoln on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on wtih full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.
Time steals youth invisibly, and inward ripeness lags behind the calendar's count
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Minutes race like waves to shore, but verse may outlast the scythe
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Watches the clock and nature's decay mark each passing hour, mourning beauty's swift decline
Creatures of gauze and velvet wings,
With life for one brief day,
Dancing and flitting where the breezes fling
The sweets of blooming May;
Skimming the stream where the wild thyme grows,
You dart with keen delight.
Only to die when the sweet wild rose
Gives perfume to the night.
Weary at last, when the day is done,
Of the breeze and clover's breath.
Folding your delicate wings with the sun,
You gently drop to death;
Glimmering wings and a few short hours
Were yours in sweet delight.
Living for a day in the world of flowers.
And then — everlasting night.
Compares a mayfly's single day to human life, showing how quickly existence slips away
One by one, one by one,
Stitches of the hours run
Through the fine seams of the day,
Till like a garment it is done
And laid away.
One by one the days go by,
And suns climb up and down the sky;
One by one their seams are run —
As Time's untiring fingers ply
And life is done.
Stitches of hours and days run like sewing threads until life is finished and laid away
Minutes swiftly throb and pass,
Shadows cross the dial-glass,
Speeding ever to some call,
Weary world and shadows, all.
Down the closing aisles of day,
Tramping footsteps die away,
But no tidings thread the gloom,
From the hushed and silent tomb.
Measures time through shadows crossing a dial, then falls silent as footsteps fade into the tomb
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.
Sees summer's end in September and laments unfulfilled dreams, but still feels time for hope
While fates permit us, let's be merry;
Pass all we must the fatal ferry;
And this our life, too, whirls away,
With the rotation of the day.
Urges merry defiance as life whirls away with each passing day
In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much -- how little -- is
Within our power
Captures the stark brevity of an hour-long life and our limited power within it
Into the blue river hills
The red sun runners go
And the long sand changes
And to-day is a goner
And to-day is not worth haggling over.
Here in Omaha
The gloaming is bitter
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand changes.
To-day is a goner.
Time knocks in another brass nail.
Another yellow plunger shoots the dark.
Constellations
Wheeling over Omaha
As in Chicago
Sees today already gone and time hammering on amid indifferent constellations
Every day,
Every day,
Tell the hours
By their shadows,
By their shadows.
Finds time's speed in the daily repetition of shadows marking hours
Here in the shade of the tree
The hours go by
Silent and swift,
Lightly as birds fly.
Then the deep clouds broaden and drift,
Or the cloudless darkness and the worn moon.
Waking, the dreamer knows he is old,
And the day that he dreamed was gone
Is gone.
Wakes to find youth's dreamed day gone, leaving only old age and regret
The Old Year's gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
In either shade or sun:
The last year he'd a neighbour's face,
In this he's known by none.
All nothing everywhere:
Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they're here
And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
In every cot and hall--
A guest to every heart's desire,
And now he's nought at all.
Time vanishes without a trace, as tangible as mist, leaving only the ache of absence
Fast the new trails lead
From wilderness to city!
Years pass ... Canada!
Wilderness yields to city in a breath, encapsulating decades of change in one fleeting line
Cut a little opening
And overcast it, then
(Throwing the thread across each stitch)
Stitch it round again.
A moment's stitching finds it
Finished ; but not until
The sun has burned its beauty out
And dropped behind the hill.
The sun burns out behind the hill before the stitching is done—craft and daylight expire together
Then the golden hour
Will tick its last
And the flame will go down in the flower.
A briefer length of moon
Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune.
Then we may think of this, yet
There will be something forgotten
And something we should forget.
It will be like all things we know:
The stone will fail; a rose is sure to go.
It will be quiet then and we may stay
As long at the picket gate
But there will be less to say.
The golden hour ticks its last, leaving less to say as time carries away both moments and words
The snow has ceased its fluttering flight,
The wind sunk to a whisper light,
An ominous stillness fills the night,
A pause--a hush.
At last, a sound that breaks the spell,
Loud, clanging mouthings of a bell,
That through the silence peal and swell,
And roll, and rush.
What does this brazen tongue declare,
That falling on the midnight air
Brings to my heart a sense of care
Akin to fright?
'Tis telling that the year is dead,
The New Year come, the Old Year fled,
Another leaf before me spread
On which to write.
The midnight bell tolls a stark accounting of missed chances as life speeds toward its final verdict
GONE, gone again,
May, June, July,
And August gone,
Again gone by,
Not memorable
Save that I saw them go,
As past the empty quays
The rivers flow.
And now again,
In the harvest rain,
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees,
As when I was young--
And when the lost one was here--
And when the war began
To turn young men to dung.
Months slip by like rivers, leaving the self a hollowed house that still breathes
How at once should I know,
When stretched in the harvest blue
I saw the swift's black bow,
That I would not have that view
Another day
Until next May
Again it is due?
The same year after year--
But with the swift alone.
With other things I but fear
That they will be over and done
Suddenly
And I only see
Them to know them gone.
Dread that other precious things, unlike the swift, will vanish without farewell
Time does go on --
I tell it gay to those who suffer now --
They shall survive --
There is a sun --
They don't believe it now --
Assures sufferers that time carries them past pain toward a sun they can't yet see
How gayly is at first begun
Our Life's uncertain Race!
Whilst yet that sprightly Morning Sun,
With which we just set out to run
Enlightens all the Place.
How smiling the World's Prospect lies
How tempting to go through !
Not Canaan to the Prophet's Eyes,
From Pisgah with a sweet Surprize,
Did more inviting shew.
How promising's the Book of Fate,
Till thoroughly understood!
Whilst partial Hopes such Lots create,
As may the youthful Fancy treat
With all that's Great and Good.
How soft the first Ideas prove,
Youth's gay start gives way to toilsome hills and a weary sinking into rest
Out of the infinite sea of eternity
To climb, and for an instant stand
Upon an island speck of time.
From the impassible peace of the darkness
To wake, and blink at the garish light
Through one short hour of fretfulness.
Life is but an instant on an island of time amid eternity's dark peace
At six o'clock of an autumn dusk
With the sky in the west a rusty red,
The bells of the mission down in the valley
Cry out that the day is dead.
The first star pricks as sharp as steel--
Why am I suddenly so cold?
Three bells, each with a separate sound
Clang in the valley, wearily tolled.
Bells in Venice, bells at sea,
Bells in the valley heavy and slow--
There is no place over the crowded world
Where I can forget that the days go.
Tolling bells at dusk make the day's death and time's relentless passage feel inescapable
Old women think of old roofs, and the things
That made these comely in the ancient sun ;
Old men think of their wars, their wayfarings done.
Both of first love; of fair, dispersed springs.
Old women and old men — God rest them all! —
To hear the dark, slow waters lap about;
To see their last of candle spluttering out; —
It is too poor an ending to befall.
But ours this golden earth from sky to sky ;
And all my thoughts of you, and yours of me;
About us memorable April set. —
Sudden I feel the fleet years tumbling by;
Age stares at me behind each rosy tree! —
Oh, snatch me to your heart ! I would forget.
Youth's golden moment suddenly reveals age staring from behind each tree, time rushing past
Shallow pools of water
Are drinking up the sky;
Chasms of cool blue-white
In the brown of the sands.
The clouds are in them,
The houses on the shore,
The winds rumple the even
Glimmer of the reflection.
I dash across those shallow pools:
Starring their gauzy surface:
A plopping rush of bubbles:
I turn and watch my boot-tracks
Oozing upwards slowly in the dark wind-wrinkled sand.
Boot-tracks in mirrored pools vanish slowly, capturing transience as human traces fade from nature
Too happy Time dissolves itself
And leaves no remnant by --
'Tis Anguish not a Feather hath
Or too much weight to fly --
Happiness dissolves without trace while anguish remains heavy—time's swift passing leaves only sorrow
I.
Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken
Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame
Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken,
Time, thy name.
Girt about with shadow, blind and lame,
Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken
Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame.
Eyes of hours whose paces halt or quicken
Read in bloodred lines of loss and blame,
Writ where cloud and darkness round it thicken,
Time, thy name.
II.
Nay, but rest is born of me for healing,
So might haply time, with voice represt,
Speak: is grief the last gift of my dealing?
Time named as sorrow itself leads weary hearts to find the only reprieve from passing hours: rest
I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers : " Omaha."
Time erases laughter and steel alike amid the prairie's rush
'Twas later when the summer went
Than when the Cricket came --
And yet we knew that gentle Clock
Meant nought but Going Home --
'Twas sooner when the Cricket went
Than when the Winter came
Yet that pathetic Pendulum
Keeps esoteric Time.
Seasonal clocks mark time's patient, esoteric pull toward home
This valley is not ours, nor these mountains,
Nor the names we give them — they belong,
They, and this sweep of sun-washed air,
Desert and hill and crumbling earth.
To those who have lain here long years
And felt the soak of the sun
Through the red sand and crumbling rock,
Till even their bones were part of the sun-steeped valley;
How many years we know not, nor what names
They gave to antelope, wolf, or bison.
To prairie dog or coyote.
To this hill where we stand,
Or the moon over your shoulder . . .
Let us build a monument to Time
That knows all, sees all, and contains all,
To whom these bones in the valley are even as we are:
Human bones and monuments dissolve before timeless geological force
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!!!
Impatience with slow time, longing for beauty's swift return
Looking at myself in my metal mirror,
I saw, faintly outlined,
The figure of a crane
Engraved upon its back.
A crane's faint trace in the mirror hints at time's quiet imprint
(They put back the clocks at two A. M.)
TO-NIGHT, I think each sleepy clock
Will lift a pedant's protest to the skies
From many a town's high tower:
— Tick-tock — tick-tock —
Rude hands presume to put us back —
Tick-tack —
One hour! —
Time will not wait, they say,
Nor sun:
Yet is this vast thing done?
Shall the slow day
Submit, the calm moon cower?
O shadowy wings that lean in flight,
O night!
Before your star-eyed birds are flown.
Tick-tock night becomes a stolen hour before dawn, turning time's rush into a tender defiance
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
How you and I, who scale together yet
A little while the sweet, immortal height
No pilgrim may remember or forget,
As sure as the world turns, some granite night
Shall lie awake and know the gracious flame
Gone out forever on the mutual stone;
And call to mind that on the day you came
I was a child, and you a hero grown?--
And the night pass, and the strange morning break
Upon our anguish for each other's sake!
Grieves in advance the cruel years that will age a love, facing time's devastating speed
To Time
Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass,
From age to age what thou hast sought to see,
One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass,
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see,
As the world's beauty in his infancy,
What is was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on, and to posterity tell this,
Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been;
Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss,
And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
That she is gone, her like again to see.
Pleads with hurried Time to pause and mourn the perfect beauty it has already swept away
On lowlands where the temples lie
The marsh-grass mingles with the flowers,
Only the little songs of birds
Link the unbroken hours.
So in the end, above my heart
Once like the city wild and gay,
The slow white stars will pass by night,
The swift brown birds by day.
Ancient ruins fade into marsh and birdsong, accepting how swiftly life becomes the past
We'll fill a Provence bowl and pledge us deep
The memory of the far ones, and between
The soothing pipes, in heavy-lidded sleep,
Perhaps we'll dream the things that once have been.
'Tis only noon and still too soon to die,
Yet we are growing old, my heart and I.
A hundred books are ready in my head
To open out where Beauty bent a leaf.
What do we want with Beauty? We are wed
Like ancient Proserpine to dismal grief.
And we are changing with the hours that fly,
And growing odd and old, my heart and I.
Across a bed of bells the river flows,
And roses dawn, but not for us; we want
The new thing ever as the old thing grows
Spectral and weary on the hills we haunt.
Noon feels too early yet age creeps in with each flying hour, memory and grief entwined