A year or two, and grey Euripides, And Horace and a Lydia or so, And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, The nose and dialogues of Socrates, Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go, -- All shall be shard of broken memories. And there shall linger other, magic things, -- The fog that creeps in wanly from the sea, The rotten harbor smell, the mystery Of moonlit elms, the flash of pigeon wings, The sunny Green, the old-world peace that clings About the college yard, where endlessly The dead go up and down. These things shall be Enchantment of our hearts' rememberings. And these are more than memories of youth Which earth's four winds of pain shall blow away; These are youth's symbols of eternal truth, Symbols of dream and imagery and flame, Symbols of those same verities that play Bright through the crumbling gold of a great name. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INDIAN WEED by RALPH ERSKINE TO HIS WATCH, WHEN HE COULD NOT SLEEP by EDWARD HERBERT THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE OLD GREY MARE by MOTHER GOOSE THE ALLEY. AN IMITATION OF SPENSER by ALEXANDER POPE AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS; SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH RED HANRAHAN'S SONG ABOUT IRELAND by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |