Chapter 10

How long ago it is since we went Maying! Since she and I went Maying long ago!-- The years have left my forehead lined, I know, Have thinned my hair around the temples graying. Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying-- "She too grows old: the face of rose and snow Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying. The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled, Has lost the litheness of its loveliness: And all the gladness that her blue eyes held Tears and the world have hardened with distress."-- "True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part! These things are chaned--but is her heart, her heart?"

UNCALLED

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun, Beholds at length from the up-towering hills, Far-off, a land unspeakable beauty fills, Circean peaks and vales of Avalon: And, sinking weary, watches, one by one, The big seas beat between; and knows it skills No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills, This is the helpless end, that all is done: So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led In quest of Beauty; and who finds at last She lies beyond his effort; all the waves Of all the world between them: while the dead, The myriad dead, who people all the past With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.