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Poems of Sidney Lanier/A Song of Eternity in Time

From Wikisource
A Song of Eternity in Time (1867)
by Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier first composed this poem in 1867 in Macon, Georgia. He revised the poem in 1879.

117482A Song of Eternity in Time1867Sidney Lanier

      Once, at night, in the manor wood
      My Love and I long silent stood,
      Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
      My Love, in aimless love and grief,
      Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
      That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

      A star that had remarked her pain
      Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
      And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
      “Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
      Some one hath wept ’twixt hope and fear,
      Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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