Le Temps

In beauty rapt, can gods, methought, surpass
This joy sublime?
Lo! at the thought, with sound of clanging brass,
Uprose old Time.
Trembling as turtle-dove that high in air
A vulture spies,
" Ah! spare our love, old man, in pity spare! "
My mistress cries.

Soon as our gaze his furrowed wrinkles meet,
Downward 'tis cast:
We see the dust beneath his rapid feet
Of ages past
Breathed on by him, a rose-bud fresh and fair
All withered lies:
" Ah! spare our love, old man, in pity spare! "
My mistress cries.

" I spare not aught, " he answers in harsh tone —
" Nought that Earth rears,
Nought e'en in Heaven — to you I'm only known
As full of years
Yet some few days are all the past lays bare
Before your eyes. "
" Ah! spare our love, old man, in pity spare! "
My mistress cries.

" Hundreds on hundreds, nations, once renowned
Now lost to view,
I've plunged in darkness — the same gulf profound
Still yawns for you.
Stars in their course eclipsed my shroud must wear;
No more they'll rise: "
" Ah! spare our love! old man, in pity spare! "
My mistress cries.

" Yet to your troubled world, despite of me,
A charm Love lends;
Whilst teeming Nature's widely spreading tree
Its shade extends
Aye, as I pluck her fruits, her provident care
The loss supplies: "
" Ah! spare our love, old man, in pity spare! "
My mistress cries.

He fled! the Pleasures too — inconstant they,
And plumed for flight —
Marking our zest for life, still bid us play
In Time's despite
But, hark! the clock reminds us to beware
How dreams flit by:
Ah! spare our love, old man! 'tis Beauty's prayer —
I join her cry.