Page:Poems and ballads, third series (IA poemsballadsthir00swin).pdf/138

 A little life to heaven and earth and sea, To stars and souls revealed of night and day, And change, the one thing changeless: yet shall she Cease too, perchance, and perish. Who shall say?

Our mother Nature, dark and sweet as sleep, And strange as life and strong as death, holds fast, Even as she holds our hearts alive, the deep Dumb secret of her first-born births and last.

But this, we know, shall cease not till the strife Of nights and days and fears and hopes find end; This, through the brief eternities of life, Endures, and calls from death a living friend;

The love made strong with knowledge, whence confirmed The whole soul takes assurance, and the past (So by time's measure, not by memory's, termed) Lives present life, and mingles first with last.