You wrong that lovely time to smile and say
Sharp desolation shivered in the snow,
And bright sands nursed bright serpents, as to-day,
A hundred years ago.

The world was full of dew and very fair,
Before I saw it scarr'd and blacken'd so;
There was wide beauty and flush'd silence there,
A hundred years ago.

No child's sweet grave, with rose-buds torn away
By the most bitter winds the falls can blow,
Before my tears in freezing loneness lay
A hundred years ago.

No phantom stars, one night in every Spring,
Saw my faint hands, with pallor wavering slow,
Give back the glimmering fragment of a ring,
A hundred years ago.

I did not feel this dim far-trembling doubt
Of Christ's love in the sky, or man's below,
And hold my heart to keep one Terror out,
A hundred years ago.

The shadow Life may wither from the grass,
Back to God's hand the unresting seas may flow;
But what shall take me where I dream I was
A hundred years ago?

Ah, would I care to look beyond the shine
Of this weird-setting moon, if I could know
The peace that made my nothingness divine
A hundred years ago?