To F. W.

Let us be drunk, and for a while forget,     Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,     Live without reason and despite of rhyme,     As in a dream preposterous and sublime,     Where place and hour and means for once are met.     Where is the use of effort?    Love and debt     And disappointment have us in a net.     Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .     Let us be drunk.     In vain our little hour we strut and fret,     And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:     We cannot please the tragicaster Time.     To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,     Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,     Let us be drunk!     ***     When you are old, and I am passed away -     Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray -     I think, whate'er the end, this dream of mine,     Comforting you, a friendly star will shine     Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.     So may it be:    that so dead Yesterday,     No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay,     May serve you memories like almighty wine,     When you are old!     Dear Heart, it shall be so.    Under the sway     Of death the past's enormous disarray     Lies hushed and dark.    Yet though there come no sign,     Live on well pleased:    immortal and divine     Love shall still tend you, as God's angels may,     When you are old.     ***     Beside the idle summer sea     And in the vacant summer days,     Light Love came fluting down the ways,     Where you were loitering with me.     Who has not welcomed, even as we,     That jocund minstrel and his lays     Beside the idle summer sea     And in the vacant summer days?     We listened, we were fancy-free;     And lo! in terror and amaze     We stood alone - alone at gaze     With an implacable memory     Beside the idle summer sea.