At Long Bay

Five years ago! you cannot choose     But know the face of change,     Though July sleeps and Spring renews     The gloss in gorge and range.     Five years ago! I hardly know     How they have slipped away,     Since here we watched at ebb and flow     The waters of the Bay;     And saw, with eyes of little faith,     From cumbered summits fade     The rainbow and the rainbow wraith,     That shadow of a shade.     For Love and Youth were vext with doubt,     Like ships on driving seas,     And in those days the heart gave out     Unthankful similes.     But let it be! Ive often said     His lot was hardly cast     Who never turned a happy head     To an unhappy Past     Who never turned a face of light     To cares beyond recall:     He only fares in sorer plight     Who hath no Past at all!     So take my faith, and let it stand     Between us for a sign     That five bright years have known the land     Since yonder tumbled line     Of seacliff took our troubled talk     The words at random thrown,     And Echo lived about this walk     Of gap and slimy stone.     Here first we learned the Love which leaves     No lack or loss behind,     The dark, sweet Love which woos the eves     And haunts the morning wind.     And roves with runnels in the dell,     And houses by the wave     What time the storm hath struck the fell     And Terror fills the cave     A Love, you know, that lives and lies     For moments past control,     And mellows through the Poets eyes     And sweetens in his soul.     Here first we faced a briny breeze,     What time the middle gale     Went shrilling over whitened seas     With flying towers of sail.     And here we heard the plovers call     As shattered pauses came,     When Heaven showed a fiery wall     With sheets of wasted flame.     Here grebe and gull and heavy glede     Passed eastward far away,     The while the wind, with slackened speed,     Drooped with the dying Day.     And here our friendship, like a tree,     Perennial grew and grew,     Till you were glad to live for me,     And I to live for you.