Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/36

 Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth, The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes, And silver o’er the golden hairs of youth, Less prized can make its only priceless prize.

Not so; the voice this silver name that gave To this, the ripe and unenfeebled date, For steps together tottering to the grave, Hath bid the perfect golden title wait.

Rather, if silver this, if that be gold, From good to better changed on age’s track, Must it as baser metal be enrolled, That day of days, a quarter-century back.

Yet ah, its hopes, its joys were golden too, But golden of the fairy gold of dreams To feel is but to dream; until we do, There’s nought that is, and all we see but seems.

What was or seemed it needed cares and tears, And deeds together done, and trials past, And all the subtlest alchemy of years, To change to genuine substance here at last.

Your fairy gold is silver sure to-day; Your ore by crosses many, many a loss, As in refiners’ fires, hath purged away What erst it had of earthy human dross.

Come years as many yet, and as they go, In human life’s great crucible shall they Transmute, so potent are the spells they know, Into pure gold the silver of to-day.