TRANSITION

A little while to walk with thee, dear child;

To lean on thee my weak and weary head;

Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,

The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.

A little while to hold thee and to stand,

By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;

Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,

Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.

A little while to love thee, scarcely time

To love thee well enough; then time to part,

To fare through wintry fields alone and climb

The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.

Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,

The winter and the darkness: one by one

The roses fall, the pale roses expire

Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.