AUGUST 



For time, as it is, cannot stay : 

 Nor again, as it was, can it be : 



Disappearing and passing away 



Are the world, and the ages, and we. 



Gone, even before we can go, 



Is our past, with its passions forgot, 



The dry tears of its wept- away woe, 

 And its laughters that gladden us not. 



The builder of heaven and of earth 

 Is our own fickle fugitive breath : 



As it comes in the moment of b'frth, 

 So it goes in the moment of death. 



As the years were before we began, 



Shall the years be when we are no more : 



And between them the years of a man 



Are as waves the wind drives to the shore. 



Back into the Infinite tend 



The creations that out of it start : 



Unto every beginning an end, 



And whatever arrives shall depart. 



But I and my songs, for a while, 



As together away on the wing 

 We are borne with a sigh or a smile, 



Have been given this message to sing 



The Now is an atom of sand, 



And the Near is a perishing clod : 



But Afar is as Faery Land, 



And Beyond is the bosom of God. 



447 



