Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness -- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn't a success. Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley Hoo, As a free man may do. For youth goes over, the joys that fly, The tears that follow fast; And the dirtiest things we do must lie Forgotten at the last; Even Love goes past. What's left behind I shall not find, The splendour and the pain; The splash of sun, the shouting wind, And the brave sting of rain, I may not meet again. But the years, that take the best away, Give something in the end; And a better friend than love have they, For none to mar or mend, That have themselves to friend. I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires; The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires. And laughter, and inn-fires. White mist about the black hedgerows, The slumbering Midland plain, The silence where the clover grows, And the dead leaves in the lane, Certainly, these remain. And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, And lips as soft, but true. And I daresay she will do. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. by JOHN KEATS UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN by ALICE MEYNELL CHICAGO [OCTOBER 8-10, 1871] by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE BLIND ASTRONOMER by THOMAS ASA CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 2. OF GRATITUDE by WILLIAM BASSE ARMISTICE DAY by ZELMA DUNNING BOWEN THE COMFORTING by MARGARET E. BRUNER BALLAD TO THE TUNE - 'I'LL DO BY THEE AS NE'ER WAS DONE' by PATRICK CAREY TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. A SONG OF ONE IN OLD AGE by EDWARD CARPENTER |