Tower of Ivory/"To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars"
"TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS"
Now has all time culminated
In this pulse of dizzy blood;
Now eternity is mated
In this swift suspended flood
Of the sense that sings, Forever
Does this perfect Now abide,
And the brain that echoes, Never,
Never, never turns again this tide.
Oh, the desperate dumb clinging
Of the unbelieving hands!
Oh, the nerves grown dull with flinging
Up the mind's o'er-written sands
All the fleetingness of wonder,
All the moment's cresting foam,
That withdrawing leaves thereunder
Vanishing, dim legends where it clomb.
Unforgotten, unremembered
Shall thy beauty haunt the brain
Like old magic cities embered
Where the golden sunsets wane;—
Ah, my love let be to-morrow!
All to-morrow is is now,
All we'd lose and all we'd borrow;—
Laugh, and prove all time more brief than thou.