Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, The world's heart breaks beneath its wars,All things are changed, save in the east,The faithful beauty of the stars.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf, That color every drop they hold, To change the lifeless wine of grief To living gold.

I saw a star slide down the sky Blinding the north as it went by Too buring and too quick to hold Too lovely to be bought or sold Good only to make wishes on And then forever to be gone

Places I love come back to me like music, / Hush me and heal me when I am very tired.

Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery.

From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.

One by one, like leaves from a tree, / All my faiths have forsaken me.