These many years since we began to be, | |
What have the gods done with us? what with me, | |
What with my love? they have shown me fates and fears, | |
Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea, | |
Grief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers, | |
These many years. | |
With her, my love, with her have they done well? | |
But who shall answer for her? who shall tell | |
Sweet things or sad, such things as no man hears? | |
10 | May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell, |
From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres | |
These many years! | |
But if tears ever touched, for any grief, | |
Those eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf, | |
Deep double shells wherethrough the eye-flower peers, | |
Let them weep once more only, sweet and brief, | |
Brief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears | |
These many years. |