Ancient

All That Is Past

***

Very old are the woods;

And the buds that break

Out of the brier's boughs,

When March winds wake,

So old with their beauty are--

Oh, no man knows

Through what wild centuries

Roves back the rose.

*

Very old are the brooks;

And the rills that rise

Where snow sleeps cold beneath

The azure skies

Sing such a history

Of come and gone,

Their every drop is as wise As Solomon.

*

Very old are we men;

Our dreams are tales

Told in dim Eden

By Eve's nightingales;

We wake and whisper awhile,

But, the day gone by,

Silence and sleep like fields

Of amaranth lie.

*

Walter de la Mare