A Song of Eternity in Time
Once, at night, in the manor wood My Love and I long silent stood, Amazed that any heavens could Decree to part us, bitterly repining. My Love, in aimless love and grief, Reached forth and drew aside a leaf That just above us played the thief And stole our starlight that for us was shining. A star that had remarked her pain Shone straightway down that leafy lane, And wrought his image, mirror-plain, Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming. ”Thus Time,” I cried, ”is but a tear Some one hath wept ’twixt hope and fear, Yet in his little lucent sphere Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”
Sidney Lanier’s other poems:
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