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Time and Place

Anniversary

page 11

Anniversary

It was a day of young October; wakened
To breathe an urgent air of summer heat in spring,
Summoned abroad, I saw the season hasten,
And the bare boughs quicken their burgeoning.

To jettison September’s golden cargoes
The freighted wattles bowed, and lilacs now upbore
Their perfumed burden, and in all the gardens
Pink muslin frocks, or white, the cherries wore.

The lime-tree’s tender fans I saw unfolding,
The birch, bright green besprinkled, parti-leaved,
And saw the sycamores and chestnuts robing —
It was as if Spring were spinning while Summer weaved.

Beyond those trees, the morning’s opened gateway
And the great ocean’s sharp, responsive blue
I saw, and new snow-silvered ranges
And snowy Tapuaenuku..…

Time importunes our vision with such favours
As it revolves, and may therewith devise
A jot of quiet, the regale to savour —
But oh, that we distil from each new spring’s surprise
Imperishable essence, intellectual labour
Storing the elexir in mind’s treasuries
Against the ultimate hour a blinding darkness lies
On these, by its very turning, ever time-menaced eyes.