A Two-Years' Idyll

     [Image: Picnicking on Plymouth Breakwater in the early 1900s]

Yes; such it was;

   Just those two seasons unsought,

Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;

      Moving, as straws,

   Hearts quick as ours in those days;

Going like wind, too, and rated as nought

   Save as the prelude to plays

   Soon to come--larger, life-fraught:

      Yes; such it was.

      "Nought" it was called,

   Even by ourselves--that which springs

Out of the years for all flesh, first or last,

      Commonplace, scrawled

   Dully on days that go past.

Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings

   Even in hours overcast:

   Aye, though this best thing of things,

      "Nought" it was called!

      What seems it now?

   Lost:  such beginning was all;

Nothing came after:  romance straight forsook

      Quickly somehow

   Life when we sped from our nook,

Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .

  --A preface without any book,

   A trumpet uplipped, but no call;

      That seems it now.