 | Marah |  |
187
EPILOGUE
1
My songs flit away on the wing:They are fledged with a smile or a sigh:
And away with the songs that I sing
Flit my joys, and my sorrows, and I.
2
For time, as it is, cannot stay:Nor again, as it was, can it be:
Disappearing and passing away
Are the world, and the ages, and we.
188
3
Gone, even before we can go,Is our past, with its passions forgot,
The dry tears of its wept-away woe,
And its laughters that gladden us not.
4
The builder of heaven and of earthIs our own fickle fugitive breath:
As it comes in the moment of birth,
So it goes in the moment of death.
5
As the years were before we began,Shall the years be when we are no more:
And between them the years of a man
Are as waves the wind drives to the shore.
189
6
Back into the Infinite tendThe creations that out of it start:
Unto every beginning an end,
And whatever arrives shall depart.
7
But I and my songs, for awhile,As together away on the wing
We are borne with a sigh or a smile,
Have been given this message to sing—
8
The Now is an atom of sand,And the Near is a perishing clod:
But Afar is as Faëry Land,
And Beyond is the bosom of God.
| Marah | |