All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.
Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!—
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.
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Comments
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Bitterness and deep loss color this poem. The thrown aways years of youth can never be recaptured, and like the repetition of the goldenrod's fate--that of dust, so, too, is the cycle of life. The poet reaches out to his reader to think, to remember how transitory life is. The opening reminds me of Ecclesiastes (to everything there is a season....)but without the balance of ying-yang.
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bell-like, delightful flow
Pretty. Sort of an echo of Shakespeare's "Golden lads and girls all must, Like chimmney sweepers, come to dust..." (Not sure if those are the exact words.) One of my favorite books (A Swiftly Titling Planet by Madeline L'Engle) was named after a line in one of Aiken's poems.
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