To an Ancient Sun-Dial

To an Ancient Sun-Dial

An hour has passed with lingering pace,

Since, bent in careless musing nigh,

I marked upon thy moss grown face

The noiseless shadow stealing by;

An hour has passed - and wandering back

The fit of vacant idleness o'er,

I see that shade in onward track

Advance one scanty inch - no more.

Less blue the wild exulting sea,

More white the morning cloud may seem,

A little more the merry bee

Hath toiled beside the chiming stream -

A little bent appears the flower,

A little raised the mountain sun,

Less bright the dew - less cool the bower -

But other change on earth is none.

Yet to the world of nobler life

What has that hour of stillness brought

Desire - despair - far-wasting strife -

The madness and the bliss of thought;

And hope, that flatters to depart,

And love with unresisted chain -

And oh! the anguish of the heart

Which knows its all of fondness vain.

City and tower perchance have sunk,

To waste and howling ruin cast.

And armaments embattled, shrunk

Like reeds before the rending blast;

The mother to her newborn child

Has bared her life bestowing breast,

And many a brow yet undefiled

The ruthless grave has called to rest.

A knell for joys forever fled -

A dooming voice beyond recall -

A trumpet signal, stern and dread,

Of warfare and of watch to all -

A sound o'er earth's arena sent,

To bid the strife of thousands cease;

Such is the gentlest moment, spent,

Amidst the calm of halcyon peace.

But we, beneath the varying beam,

While thus time's onward waters flow

O'er straw and bubble - dream and dream

Nor heed the torrent's depth below,

Destruction, wide as land and sea,

And life, and death, and waste, and power -

Alas! who thinks that such must be

The record of each sunny hour!

Unattributed

2:37, p. 148

1838.11.03