Ye might end surely, surely pass Out of the multitude of things, Under the dust, beneath the grass, Deep in dim death, where no thought stings, No record clings. No memory more of love or hate, No trouble, nothing that aspires, No sleepless labour thwarting fate, And thwarted; where no travail tires, Where no faith fires. All passes, nought that has been is, Things good and evil have one end. Can anything be otherwise Though all men swear all things would mend With God to friend? Can ye beat off one wave with prayer, Can ye move mountains? bid the flower Take flight and turn to a bird in the air? Can ye hold fast for shine or shower One wingless hour? Ah sweet, and we too, can we bring One sigh back, bid one smile revive? Can God restore one ruined thing, Or he who slays our souls alive Make dead things thrive? Two gifts perforce he has given us yet, Though sad things stay and glad things fly; Two gifts he has given us, to forget All glad and sad things that go by, And then to die. We know not whether death be good, But life at least it will not be: Men will stand saddening as we stood, Watch the same fields and skies as we And the same sea. Let this be said between us here, One love grows green when one turns grey; This year knows nothing of last year; To-morrow has no more to say To yesterday. Live and let live, as I will do, Love and let love, and so will I. But, sweet, for me no more with you: Not while I live, not though I die. Goodnight, goodbye. AN INTERLUDE In the greenest growth of the Maytime, I rode where the woods were wet, Between the dawn and the daytime; The spring was glad that we met. There was something the season wanted, Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet; The breath at your lips that panted, The pulse of the grass at your feet. You came, and the sun came after, And the green grew golden above; And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter, And the meadow-sweet shook with love. Your feet in the full-grown grasses Moved soft as a weak wind blows; You passed me as April passes, With face made out of a rose. By the stream where the stems were slender, Your bright foot paused at the sedge; It might be to watch the tender Light leaves in the springtime hedge, On boughs that the sweet month blanches With flowery frost of May: It might be a bird in the branches, It might be a thorn in the way. I waited to watch you linger With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you. And a bird overhead sang _Follow_, And a bird to the right sang _Here_; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.