Page:Songs and Sonnets (1906).djvu/121



lovely grows the earth as we grow old,
 * More tenderness is in the dawning spring,
 * More bronze upon the blackbird's burnished wing,

And richer is the autumn cloth-of-gold; A deeper meaning, too, the years unfold,
 * Until to waiting hearts each living thing
 * For very love its bounty seems to bring,

Intreating us with beauty to behold.

Or is it that with years we grow more wise
 * And reverent to the mystery profound—

Withheld from careless or indifferent eyes—
 * That broods in simple things the world around—

More conscious of the Love that glorifies
 * The common ways and makes them holy ground?