The years have gathered grayly

   Since I danced upon this leaze

With one who kindled gaily

   Love’s fitful ecstasies!

But despite the term as teacher,

   I remain what I was then

In each essential feature

   Of the fantasies of men.

Yet I note the little chisel

   Of never-napping Time,

Defacing ghast and grizzel

   The blazon of my prime.

When at night he thinks me sleeping,

   I feel him boring sly

Within my bones, and heaping

   Quaintest pains for by-and-by.

Still, I’d go the world with Beauty,

   I would laugh with her and sing,

I would shun divinest duty

   To resume her worshipping.

But she’d scorn my brave endeavour,

   She would not balm the breeze

By murmuring “Thine for ever!”

   As she did upon this leaze.

1890.

Sketch of pair of glasses on sketch of landscape