When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,/ The mother of months in meadow or plain/ Fills the shadows and windy places/ With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain . . .

I will go back to the great sweet mother,/ Mother and lover of men, the sea.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

This I ever held worse that all certitude, To know not what the worst ahead might be.

Time turns the old days to derision, our loves into corpses or wives; and marriage and death and division make barren our lives.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives