As sailors watch from their prison
For the faint grey line of the coasts,
I look to the past re-arisen,
And joys come over in hosts
Like the white sea birds from their roosts.
I love not the indelicate present,
The future's unknown to our quest,
To-day is the life of the peasant,
But the past is a haven of rest--
The things of the past are the best.
The rose of the past is better
Than the rose we ravish to-day,
'Tis holier, purer, and fitter
To place on the shrine where we pray
For the secret thoughts we obey.
In the past nothing dies, nothing changes,
In the past all is lovely and still;
No grief nor fate that estranges,
Nor hope that no life can fulfil,
But ethereal shelter from ill.
The coarser delights of the hour
Tempt, and debauch, and deprave,
And we joy in a flitting flower,
Knowing that nothing can save
Our flesh from the fate of the grave.
But sooner or later returning
In grief to the well-loved nest,
Our souls filled with infinite yearning,
We cry, there is rest, there is rest
In the past, its joys are the best.