Collected poems, 1901-1918/All That's Past

by Walter de la Mare

ALL THAT'S PAST

VERY old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are —
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.

Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;

We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.