Youth and Time
Once, I remember, the world was young;
The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue;
The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang;
The thrush's shout in the woodland rang;
The cliffs and the perilous sands afar
Were softened to mist by the morning star;
For Youth was with me (I know it now!),
And a light shone out from his wreathèd brow.
He turned the fields to enchanted ground,
He touched the rains with a dreamy sound.
But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared,
The Spirit of Ages, old and weird.
He crushed and scattered my beamy wings;
He dragged me forth from the court of kings;
He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard,
63
