Eleanor Everest Freer - I thought once how Theocritus had sung (Sonnets from the Portuguese) lyrics
[Eleanor Everest Freer - I thought once how Theocritus had sung Sonnets from the Portuguese lyrics]
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years
The dear and wished-for years
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me straightway I was 'ware
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove
- "Guess now who holds thee!" -
"Death, " I said but, there
The silver answer rang, "Not death, but Love"
Of the sweet years
The dear and wished-for years
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me straightway I was 'ware
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove
- "Guess now who holds thee!" -
"Death, " I said but, there
The silver answer rang, "Not death, but Love"