The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world.

Here at the quiet limit of the world.

And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers.

He makes no friend who never made a foe.

Tho' much is taken, much abides.

A life of nothing's nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth, To that last nothing under earth.

Tis not too late to seek a newer world.