Song in Time of Waiting.

Because the days are long for you and me,             I make this song to lighten their slow time,         So that the weary waiting fruitful be             Or blossomed only by my limping rhyme.                     The days are very long             And may not shortened be by any chime             Of measured words or any fleeting song.         Yet let us gather blossoms while we wait         And sing brave tunes against the face of fate.         Day after day goes by: the exquisite             Procession of the variable year,         Summer, a sheaf with flowers bound up in it,             And autumn, tender till the frosts appear                     And dry the humid skies;             And winter following on, aloof, austere,             Clad in the garments of a frore sunrise;         And spring again.    May not too many a spring         Make both our voices tremble as we sing!         The days are empty, empty, and the nights             Are cold and void; there is no single gleam         Across the space unpeopled of delights,             Save only now and then some thin-blood dream,                     Some stray of summer weather;             The tedious hours like slow-foot laggarts seem,             When you and I, my love, are not together         And when I hold you in my arms at last         The minutes go like April cloudlets past.         And yet no hidden charm, no desperate spell             Can make these minutes longer, those less long:         No force there is that yearning can impel             Against the callous years which do us wrong.                     No words, no whispered rune,             No witchery and no Thessalian song             Can make that far-off, misty day more soon.         The bravest tune, the most courageous rhyme         Fall broken from the bastions of time.         A long and dusty road it is to tread;             Few are the wayside flowers and far apart         And are no sooner plucked than withered,             When yearning heart is torn from yearning heart.                     A weary road it is             And yet far off I see clear waters start             And clean sweet grass and tangled traceries         Of whispering leaves, that laugh to see us come,         And there one day ... one day shall be our home.         The day will come.    O dearest, do not doubt!             It is not born as yet but I shall see         Some day the fearless sunrise flashing out             And know the night will give you up to me.                     O heart, my heart, be glad,             Because the time will come at last when we             Shall leave all grief and unlearn all things sad         And know the joy than which none sweeter is         And I shall sing a happier song than this.