Doves
AH, if man’s boast and man’s advance be vain,And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,The monstrous island of the middle main;If each inheritor must sink againUnder his sires, as falleth where it clombBack on the gone wave the disheartened foam?—I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul’sShook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.“God keeps,” I said, “our little flock of years.”
AH, if man’s boast and man’s advance be vain,And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,The monstrous island of the middle main;If each inheritor must sink againUnder his sires, as falleth where it clombBack on the gone wave the disheartened foam?—I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul’sShook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.“God keeps,” I said, “our little flock of years.”
AH, if man’s boast and man’s advance be vain,And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,The monstrous island of the middle main;If each inheritor must sink againUnder his sires, as falleth where it clombBack on the gone wave the disheartened foam?—I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.
AH, if man’s boast and man’s advance be vain,
And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,
And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,
The monstrous island of the middle main;
If each inheritor must sink again
Under his sires, as falleth where it clomb
Back on the gone wave the disheartened foam?—
I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.
What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul’sShook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.“God keeps,” I said, “our little flock of years.”
What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!
Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,
Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul’s
Shook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,
And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.
“God keeps,” I said, “our little flock of years.”