Permanence in Change

Would I might those early blessings,

Ah, for but one hour hold fast!

But the west wind shakes the blossoms

Raining down in its warm blast.

Should I thank the leaves that follow

For their green shade’s welcome pall?

Soon enough, now fallow-yellow,

Storms will ravage them in Fall.

Fruit is grasped before it’s gotten:

Quickly haste to take your share!

Now it’s ripe, and now it’s rotten,

Others germinate right there;

Your sweet valley’s changed forever

Every time it showers with rain;

And in the river, never never

Can you ever swim again.

As for you!—that rock-bound fastness

Seems now to materialize—

Rampart, palace, see its vastness

Evermore with changing eyes.

Vanished are the lips of sweetness

That once pleasured in a kiss,

Daring feet that tried their featness

Goatlike on the precipice;

Hand that eager in its motion

Moved to the unselfish act—

All that fine articulation

Now is quite another fact.

What supplants your former being

Claiming for itself your name,

Like a wave forever fleeing

Came, and passes, just the same.

Let the end and the beginning

Merge themselves, then, into one!

Swifter than the time-world’s spinning

Fly, for flying’s never done.

Thank the muses for their lessons

Promising the unmarred whole:

In your heart the unchanged essence,

And the pure form in your soul.

1803