Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/449

HYPATIA Ah, boyhood, blithe and cruel,

Whose heat doth need no fuel,

No help of wine and spices

And frigid Eld's devices!

All pleasant things ye find you,

And to your sweet selves bind you.

For you alone the motion

Of brave ships on the ocean;

All stars for you are shining,

All wreaths your foreheads twining;

All joys, your joys decreeing,

Are portions of your being,—

All fairest sights your features,

Ye selfish, soulful creatures!

Sing me no more distiches

Of glory, wisdom, riches;

Tell me no beldame's story

Of wisdom, wealth, and glory!

To Youth these are a wonder,—

To Age a corpse-light under

The tomb with rusted portal

Of that which seemed immortal.

I, too, in Youth's dear fetter,

Will love my foeman better,—

Ay, though his ill I study,—

So he be young and ruddy,

Than comrade true and golden,

So he be waxen olden.

Ah, winsome Youth, stay by us!

I prithee, do not fly us!

Ah, Youth, sweet Youth, I love ye!

There's naught on Earth above ye!

HYPATIA

fifteen hundred years, you say,

Since that fair teacher died 419