Poems of Sidney Lanier/A Song of Eternity in Time

by Sidney Lanier

      Once, at night, in the manor wood
      My Love and I long silent stood,
      Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
      My Love, in aimless love and grief,
      Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
      That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

      A star that had remarked her pain
      Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
      And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
      “Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
      Some one hath wept ’twixt hope and fear,
      Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”