Transience.
Spring now is gone—so it's farewell To all our half-formed hopes, and dim, ecstatic dreams.
Farewell for ever to the straight spears of youth
And the green garlands.
The year ebbs on, and no more shall we see
These flowers, these suns,
Though there may rise in other greater heavens
Far brighter radiance.
These flowers are lost.
These jonquils have pressed up the earth,
Have seen the light, and died,
And in their place come roses,
And the wild coloured peonies,
And heavy scented lilies,
But no more and no more for us
Come the green and the white and the gold.
No more the young things, the wild things,
And the tender.
Never again these hopes, these dreams,
These quivering, trembling fears,
This sense of something hidden, half revealed,
This sound of Pan's faint piping,
This clear air.
This standing on the Rim of Time, This loveliness.
And we who stood upon the mountain top,
And viewed the stars with laughing, languorous eyes,
And held our arms out to the sun,
And we who ran, sure-footed down the mountain path,
And plucked with greedy hands the flowers that grew,
Have now but empty arms,
And feet that go but slowly,
And the year speeds on, While in her turn comes Spring again,
But our bright Spring—is gone.

—Isobel Andrews.

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