A little while to walk with thee, dear child;
   To lean on thee my weak and weary head;
Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,
   The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.

A little while to hold thee and to stand,
   By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;
Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,
   Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.

A little while to love thee, scarcely time
   To love thee well enough; then time to part,
To fare through wintry fields alone and climb
   The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.

Short summer-time and then, my heart’s desire,
   The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
   Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.