A Song Of Eternity In Time

Sidney Lanier 1842 (Macon) – 1881 (Lynn)



Once, at night, in the manor wood
   My Love and I long silent stood,
   Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
   My Love, in aimless love and grief,
   Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
   That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

   A star that had remarked her pain
   Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
   And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
   "Thus Time," I cried, "is but a tear
   Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,
   Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

33 sec read
66

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAABCCCB DDDBXEEB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 626
Words 115
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8

Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier was a poet, writer, composer, critic, professor of literature at Johns Hopkins and first flutist with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltiimore. He wrote the Centennial cantata for the opening ceremony of the 1876 Centennial celebration in Philadelphia. more…

All Sidney Lanier poems | Sidney Lanier Books

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