The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Just twenty years ago the same shouts sounded.
With boyish eager eyes I watched the field:
Watched the red ball that o'er the live hedge bounded;
Joined in the merry cries that rang and pealed.

To-day with sense of speechless desolation
Each dead year thrills me from its ghostly throne:
Years that began with songs and exultation,
Then left me in the starless dark, alone.

How strange to think that these boy-hearts awaking
To life to-day, are ignorant indeed!
Yet that on each love's pitiless morning breaking
Will change the hearts that sing to hearts that bleed.

No spirit shall shun the love-doom waiting ready,
Ready to seize and shape to newer things.
All shall be whirled around Fate's frothing eddy,
Helpless as are i'the stream a moth's white wings.

Ye know so little of what shall surely follow:
Your clear gaze centres on the cricket-green.
You Venus touches not, nor great Apollo;
Nought is to you the golden-girdled queen.

Nought are her white arms eager for embraces—
Eager as ever, though her shrines may fall.
She waits. She peers into the young fresh faces.
She wonders which heart first will heed her call.

She wonders who will chant afresh her praises,
Gathering wild garlands from the wind-swept wold,
Crowning her now with fern or pink-tipped daisies;
For silent are the lips which sang of old.

Nought is she to you.—Yet than rivers clearer
Shall ring some voice whose music waits afar.
Daily Fate brings the destined moment nearer,
As evening brings the sky its certain star.

Sweeter one day shall sound a girl's soft laughter
Than laugh of comrade brave, or trusty friend.
Theirs is one hour: but hers is the hereafter.
They triumph now: she triumphs till the end.

Touching her hand, ye shall forget to covet
The whitest flower that in earth's garden grows:
Hearing her voice, ye shall for ever love it:
Touching her lips, ye shall forget the rose.

Far sweeter things there are than ye are dreaming
In this strange world where love is linked to pain;
Eyes with a lovelier light than summer's gleaming.—
We mortals vanish. But the stars remain.

The stars of love for ever shine resplendent:
They lighted Byron on his lonely way.
They still abide, in love's train still attendant,
And they shall light you. Ye shall have your day.