How long ago it is since we went Maying!
Since she and I went Maying long ago!
The years have left my forehead lined, I know,
Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.
Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying—
“She, too, grows old: the face of rose and snow
Has lost its freshness: in the hair’s brown glow
Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.
The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,
Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:
And all the gladness that her blue eyes held
Tears and the world have hardened with distress.”—
“True! true!” I answer, “O ye years that part!
These things are changed—but is her heart, her heart?”