NAY, blame me not; I might have sparedYour patience many a trivial verse,Yet these my earlier welcome shared,So, let the better shield the worse.
And some might say, 'Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost.'
When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write--ah, well a-day!The autumn thistle's silvery downIs not the purple bloom of May.
Go, little book, whose pages holdThose garnered years in loving trust;How long before your blue and goldShall fade and whiten in the dust?
O sexton of the alcoved tomb,Where souls in leathern cerements lie,Tell me each living poet's doom!How long before his book shall die?
It matters little, soon or late,A day, a month, a year, an age,--I read oblivion in its date,And Finis on its title-page.
Before we sighed, our griefs were told;Before we smiled, our joys were sung;And all our passions shaped of oldIn accents lost to mortal tongue.
In vain a fresher mould we seek,--Can all the varied phrases tellThat Babel's wandering children speakHow thrushes sing or lilacs smell?
Caged in the poet's lonely heart,Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone;The soul that sings must dwell apart,Its inward melodies unknown.
Deal gently with us, ye who readOur largest hope is unfulfilled,--The promise still outruns the deed,--The tower, but not the spire, we build.
Our whitest pearl we never find;Our ripest fruit we never reach;The flowering moments of the mindDrop half their petals in our speech.
These are my blossoms; if they wearOne streak of morn or evening's glow,Accept them; but to me more fairThe buds of song that never blow.
And some might say, 'Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost.'
When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write--ah, well a-day!The autumn thistle's silvery downIs not the purple bloom of May.
Go, little book, whose pages holdThose garnered years in loving trust;How long before your blue and goldShall fade and whiten in the dust?
O sexton of the alcoved tomb,Where souls in leathern cerements lie,Tell me each living poet's doom!How long before his book shall die?
It matters little, soon or late,A day, a month, a year, an age,--I read oblivion in its date,And Finis on its title-page.
Before we sighed, our griefs were told;Before we smiled, our joys were sung;And all our passions shaped of oldIn accents lost to mortal tongue.
In vain a fresher mould we seek,--Can all the varied phrases tellThat Babel's wandering children speakHow thrushes sing or lilacs smell?
Caged in the poet's lonely heart,Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone;The soul that sings must dwell apart,Its inward melodies unknown.
Deal gently with us, ye who readOur largest hope is unfulfilled,--The promise still outruns the deed,--The tower, but not the spire, we build.
Our whitest pearl we never find;Our ripest fruit we never reach;The flowering moments of the mindDrop half their petals in our speech.
These are my blossoms; if they wearOne streak of morn or evening's glow,Accept them; but to me more fairThe buds of song that never blow.
