- I thought once how Theocritus had sung
- Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
- Who each one in a gracious hand appears
- To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
- And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
- I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
- The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
- Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
- A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
- So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
- Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
- And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
- “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,
- The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”