Have thought that my secret was theirs, They are dust, they are changed, they are gone! [DRAM. & LYR.] THE YOUTH OF MAN. WE, O Nature, depart; Thou survivest us! this, This, I know, is the law. Thou who seest us die Seest us change while we live ; Watchest us, Nature, throughout, Mild and inscrutably calm! Well for us that we change! Behold, O Nature, this pair! See them to-night where they stand, Crowning their brows with its light, Not with the rapture of spring, Which they had of old, when they stood Years ago at my side In this self-same garden, and said: 'We are young, and the world is ours, For man is the king of the world! Fools that these mystics are Who prate of Nature! but she Hath neither beauty, nor warmth, Nor life, nor emotion, nor power. Lives in our eyes which can paint, Thou, O Nature, wast mute, Mute as of old! days flew, Days and years; and Time With the ceaseless stroke of his wings Brush'd off the bloom from their soul. Clouded and dim grew their eye, Languid their heart-for youth Quicken'd its pulses no more. Slowly within the walls Of an ever-narrowing world They droop'd, they grew blind, they grew old. Thee and their youth in thee, Nature, they saw no more! Murmur of living! Stir of existence ! Soul of the world! Make, oh make yourselves felt To the dying spirit of youth! Come, like the breath of the spring! Leave not a human soul To grow old in darkness and pain! Only the living can feel you, But leave us not while we live! Here they stand to-night Here, where this grey balustrade Is the castled house with its woods From the grey-wall'd gardens, a breath Their children play on the lawns. From a distant farm in the hills;- The wide, wide valley outspreads In the twilight, and bathed in dew, Corn-field and hamlet and copse Darkening fast! but a light, Far off, a glory of day, Still plays on the city-spires; And there in the dusk by the walls, With the grey mist marking its course Through the silent flowery land, |