A SUN-DIAL IN A GARDEN

Across the quiet garden sunlight flows

In wave on wave like water, heavy bees

Hang drowsily upon the drowsy flowers,

For it is very still, and all the trees

Are pyramided high in green and gold.

There is a sun-dial there to mark the hours

Where time is not, where time has grown so old

It does not move now; yet the shadow goes

Across the dial that's so warm to feel

Like a cold, stealthy, creeping, living thing.

You cannot see it steal

Minute from minute of the golden day

Till all are eaten away,

You cannot press it back with both your hands,

And, on the shadowed stone

Laying your cheek, you never warmth can bring

To what beneath the sad triangle stands,

Solitary in sunlight: for we know,

It takes the whole great swinging earth to throw

The little shadow on the little stone.