Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/142

POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND 'T was well: but the fire would still flash up in sharp, heat-lightning gleams,

And ever at night the false, fair face shone into passionate dreams;

The false, fair form, through many a year, was somewhere close at my side,

And crept, as by right, to my very arms and the place of my patient bride.

Bride and vision have passed away, and I am again alone;

Changed by years; not wiser, I think, but only different grown:

Not so much nearer wisdom is a man than a boy, forsooth,

Though, in scorn of what has come and gone, he hates the ways of his youth.

In seven years, I have heard it said, a soul shall change its frame;

Atom for atom, the man shall be the same, yet not the same;

The last of the ancient ichor shall pass away from his veins,

And a new-born light shall fill the eyes whose earlier lustre wanes.

In seven years, it is written, a man shall shift his mood;

Good shall seem what was evil, and evil the thing that was good:

Ye that welcome the coming and speed the parting guest,

Tell me, O winds of summer! am I not half-confest?

For along the tide of this mellow month new fancies guide my helm,

Another form has entered my heart as rightful queen of the realm; 112