But hark! but look! the warning rook Wings home in level flight; The children tired with play and book Have kiss'd and call'd Good-night! Ah, sisters, look! What fields be these That lie so sad and shorn? What hand has cut our coppices, And thro' the trimm'd, the ruin'd, trees Lets wail a wind forlorn? 'Tis Time, 'tis Time has done this crime And laid our meadows waste-- The bent unwearied tyrant Time, That knows nor rest nor haste. Yet courage, children; homeward bring Your hearts, your garlands high; For we have dared to do a thing That shall his worst defy. We cannot nail the dial's hand; We cannot bind the sun By Gibeon to stay and stand, Or the moon o'er Ajalon; We cannot blunt th' abhorred shears, Nor shift the skeins of Fate, Nor say unto the posting years "Ye shall not desolate." We cannot cage the lion's rage, Nor teach the turtle-dove Beside what well his moan to tell Or to haunt one only grove; But the lion's brood will range for food As the fledged bird will rove. And east and west we three may wend-- Yet we a wreath have wound For us shall wind withouten end The wide, wide world around: Be it east or west, and ne'er so far, In east or west shall peep no star, No blossom break from ground, But minds us of the wreath we wove Of innocence and holy love That in the meads we found, And handsell'd from the Mower's scythe, And bound with memory's living withe-- You and I and Burd so blithe-- Three maidens on a mound: And all of happiness was ours Shall find remembrance 'mid the flowers, Shall take revival from the flowers And by the flowers be crown'd. EPILOGUE TO A MOTHER, ON SEEING HER SMILE REPEATED IN HER DAUGHTER'S EYES A thousand songs I might have made Of You, and only You; A thousand thousand tongues of fire That trembled down a golden wire To lamp the night with stars, to braid The morning bough with dew. Within the greenwood girl and boy Had loiter'd to their lure, And men in cities closed their books To dream of Spring and running brooks And all that ever was of joy For manhood to abjure. And I'd have made them strong, so strong Outlasting towers and towns-- Millennial shepherds 'neath the thorn Had piped them to a world reborn, And danced Delight the dale along And up the daisied downs. A thousand songs I might have made... But you required them not; Content to reign your little while Ere, abdicating with a smile, You pass'd into a shade, a shade Immortal--and forgot! End of Project Gutenberg's The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q", by Q