It is amazing to see one's past like a receding shore
And to say: “I shall never return there” …
To feel the distance widening between you and it,
To lose it at last, save as phantasy,
To see the past as belonging to some other self
While you land on a new coast and almost in another world,
And you are not what you were …

So I see my life in the distance, its birth and death,
And it seems almost like the life of some one else …
I see it closed, yet I am here, still in the middle years,
And it seems amazing to have been all that, and yet to be living, with perhaps many more stanzas to be added to the song …

I am in the same city, and I cross and re-cross the same streets,
But it is not the same city and these streets are not the same,
For I am different …

This is the first day of Spring, and a Sunday,
The street, outside my open window, is shining on the north side with the sun,
The skies are a tender blue, a bird is flying along the roofs,
The air is indescribably fresh and touched with the eternal elemental sea and earth,
The church bells ring, it is Sunday morning …

I am idle in an isle of peace, for the book is written,
The song is closed …
I shall know a poet's holiday …

It shall not be long …
For Peace is afar and War is the breath of the artist's being …
When there are no more Gods to conquer, there are no more songs to sing …
I must grow as old as Prospero before I bury my magic wand
Certain fathoms in the earth …