FASTRADA'S RING.
"Stretch out thy hand, insatiate Time!
Keeper of keys, restore to me
Some gift that in the gray Earth's prime
Her happy children held of thee;
Some signet of that mystery
Thy footsteps trample into death,
Some score of that strange harmony
That sings in every breath."
Keeper of keys, restore to me
Some gift that in the gray Earth's prime
Her happy children held of thee;
Some signet of that mystery
Thy footsteps trample into death,
Some score of that strange harmony
That sings in every breath."
So sung I on an autumn-day,
Sitting in silence, golden, clear,
When even the mild winds seemed to pray
Beside the slowly dying year,
And the old conqueror stopped to hear;
For, like the echo of a bell,
I heard him speak, in accents clear:
"Choose! and thy wise choice tell!"
Sitting in silence, golden, clear,
When even the mild winds seemed to pray
Beside the slowly dying year,
And the old conqueror stopped to hear;
For, like the echo of a bell,
I heard him speak, in accents clear:
"Choose! and thy wise choice tell!"
Then all my vanishing desires,
The threads of hope and joy and pain,
The threads of hope and joy and pain,
