Time and Its Passage

In my beginning is my end.

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.

Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses’ heels Over the paving.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older.

Come night, strike hour. Days go, I endure. 4

Under Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine. 3

Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too, once. And never again. But this having been once, though only once, having been once on earth—can it ever be canceled?

The old dog barks backward without getting up. I can remember when he was a pup.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

How slow the shadow creeps: but when ’tis past How fast the shadows fall. How fast! How fast!

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love’s pleasure drives his love away, The painter’s brush consumes his dreams.

Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the leveling wind.

But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?

The years like great black oxen tread the world, And God the herdsman goads them on behind, And I am broken by their passing feet.

How to keep—is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty… from vanishing away?

Ah, no; the years, the years; Down their chiseled names the raindrop plows.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality.

Good Morning—Midnight— I’m coming Home— Day—got tired of Me— How could I—of Him?

The world in which we live and move Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, Remorse, grief, joy.

My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere: It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

The bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.