The little things old Time has turned to ashes,
Fair aspirations and high-sounding hopes;
But even now I see the scarlet flashes
Of lowries winging through the leafy slopes
Ere summer set brown hands upon the bracken.
And I recall the midnight breeze that drew
Tree music from tall boughs till, faintly shaken,
It seemed a million starts were murmuring, too.
And card castles of dream old Time has tumbled
To all the winds and left of harvest the husks;
But I like to think of how the river stumbled
Across the stones in silver summer dusks.
It seems I have forgotten small hells and heavens,
Praise, blame and Love's once precious-seeming words.
But I remember quiet autumn evens,
Leaves dropping, and the small talk of the birds.
The solid things, dissolved in dust and scattered,
Deep-rooted things, uprooted, branch and stem.
But the little things, that once so little mattered,
How strange it is that I remember them!
First published in The Bulletin, 28 June 1933
