Blame me not that this epistle Is the first you have from me. Idleness has held me fettered, But at last the times are bettered And once more I wet my whistle Here in France, beside the sea. All the green and idle weather I have had in sun and shower Such an easy warm subsistence, Such an indolent existence I should find it hard to sever Day from day and hour from hour. Many a tract-provided ranter May upbraid me, dark and sour, Many a bland Utilitarian Or excited Millenarian, -- 'Pereunt et imputantur You must speak to every hour.' But the very term's deceptive, You, at least, my friend, will see, That in sunny grassy meadows Trailed across by moving shadows To be actively receptive Is as much as man can be. He that all the winter grapples Difficulties, thrust and ward -- Needs to cheer him thro' his duty Memories of sun and beauty, Orchards with the russet apples Lying scattered on the sward. Many such I keep in prison, Keep them here at heart unseen, Till my muse again rehearses Long years hence, and in my verses You shall meet them re-arisen Ever comely, ever green. You know how they never perish, How, in time of later art, Memories consecrate and sweeten These defaced and tempest-beaten Flowers of former years we cherish, Half a life, against our heart. Most, those love-fruits withered greenly, Those frail, sickly amourettes, How they brighten with the distance Take new strength and new existence Till we see them sitting queenly Crowned and courted by regrets! All that loveliest and best is, Aureole-fashion round their heads, They that looked in life but plainly, How they stir our spirits vainly When they come to us Alcestis- Like, returning from the dead! Not the old love but another, Bright she comes at Memory's call Our forgotten vows reviving To a newer, livelier living, As the dead child to the mother Seems the fairest child of all. Thus our Goethe, sacred master, Travelling backward thro' his youth, Surely wandered wrong in trying To renew the old, undying Loves that cling in memory faster Than they ever lived in truth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MARIA MINOR by MARGARET AVISON UNINITIATED by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE FORLORN, MY LOVE by ROBERT BURNS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. A VILLAGE CHURCH by EDWARD CARPENTER KATE TEMPLE'S SONG by EDWARD JAMES MORTIMER COLLINS ODE UPON OCCASION OF A COPY OF VERSES OF MY LORD BROGHILL'S by ABRAHAM COWLEY |