All that's Past

    VERY old are the woods;
        And the buds that break
    Out of the brier's boughs,
        When March winds wake,
    So old with their beauty are--
        Oh, no man knows
    Through what wild centuries
        Roves back the rose.
    Very old are the brooks;
        And the rills that rise
    Where snow sleeps cold beneath
        The azure skies
    Sing such a history
        Of come and gone,
    Their every drop is as wise
        As Solomon.

    Very old are we men;
        Our dreams are tales
    Told in dim Eden
        By Eve's nightingales;
    We wake and whisper awhile,
        But, the day gone by,
    Silence and sleep like fields
        Of amaranth lie.

Walter De La Mare