Fire-flies
They weave with many threads our souls,
A subtle-tinted thing,
So interwoven that none controls
His own imagining;
For every strand with other strands
They twine and bind with viewless hands.
They weave the future of the past;
Their mystic web is wrought
With dreams from which we woke at last.
And many a secret thought;
For still they weave, howe'er we strive,
The web new-woven for none alive.
iv.
And still the fire-flies come and go—
Each is a dreamy flame—
Still palely drifting to and fro
The very way they came—
As though, across the dark they wove
Fate and the shining web thereof.
Yet, even were I sure of it,
I would not lift a hand
To break the threads that shine and flit-
For, ah, I understand:
Ruin, indeed, I well might leave;
But a new web could never weave.
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