My Virtual Reading Room

Change

Changed? Yes, I will confess it--I have changed.
I do not love you in the old fond way.
I am your friend still--time has not estranged
One kindly feeling of that vanished day.

But the bright glamour which made life a dream,
The rapture of that time, its sweet content,
Like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem--
And yet I cannot tell you how they went.

Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes
Upon me, dear? Is it so very strange
That hearts, like all things underneath God's skies,
Should sometimes feel the influence of change?

The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees,
The stars which seem so fixed, and so sublime,
Vast continents, and the eternal seas,--
All these do change, with ever-changing time.

The face our mirror shows us year on year
Is not the same; our dearest aim, or need
Our lightest thought, or feeling, hope, or fear,
All, all the law of alteration heed.

How can we ask the human heart to stay,
Content with fancies of Youth's earliest hours?
The year outgrows the violets of May,
Although, maybe, there are no fairer flowers.

And life may hold no sweeter love than this,
Which lies so cold, so voiceless, and so dumb.
And will I miss it, dear? Why, yes, we miss
The violets always--till the roses come!

(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)