Classic Poem

Let me, who am your poet—(nor thereby
Think me less yours that other worlds I sing
Than your sweet universe) now let me try
Persuasion such as in an antique spring
Pan among cowslip meadows might have thus
Found with his shepherd's daughter prosperous:

“O love, why should you ever look beyond
This gladness into past or future time,
Accusing in your mind the heart now fond,
With phantom treason or ungendered crime?
For mortal ever is the lover's kiss
And mocks who claims diviner emphasis.

“But one day and another day shall come
New kisses, love, with each its sovran power
Bidding to-morrow's history be dumb
And yesterday's but a forgotten hour,
Fold up your fears, put your sad fancies by,
Lest in complaint our sweet occasion die.

“Lest in complaint of sad example grow
But barren hours to-morrow from to-day;
Love lives but by renewal, and can show
Constant succession never; therefore pay
Proudly the charges of this present need,
Or bid me sound on other shores my reed.”