The Crown Of Years

Years grow and gather--each a gem
    Lustrous with laughter and with tears,
    And cunning Time a crown of years
Contrives for her who weareth them.

No chance can snatch this diadem,
    It trembles not with hopes or fears,
    It shines before the rose appears,
And when the leaves forsake her stem.

Time sets his jewels one by one.
    Then wherefore mourn the wreaths that lie
            In attic chambers of the past?
They withered ere the day was done.
    This coronal will never die,
            Nor shall you lose it at the last.

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

Youth Renewed

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Hope Deferred

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Art's Discipline

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

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Vanity Of Vanities

Be ye happy, if ye may,
In the years that pass away.
Ye shall pass and be forgot,
And your place shall know you not.

Other generations rise,
With the same hope in their eyes
That in yours is kindled now,
And the same light on their brow.

They shall see the selfsame sun
That your eyes now gaze upon,
They shall breathe the same sweet air,
And shall reck not who ye were.

Yet they too shall fade at last
In the twilight of the past,
They and you alike shall be
Lost from the world's memory.

Then, while yet ye breathe and live,
Drink the cup that life can give.
Be ye happy, if ye may,
In the years that pass away,

Ere the golden bowl be broken,
Ere ye pass and leave no token,
Ere the silver cord be loosed,

Robert Fuller Murray

Crowned.

Her thoughts are sweet glimpses of heaven,
Her life is that heaven brought down;
Oh, never to mortal was given
So rare and bejewelled a crown!
I'll wear it as saints wear the glory
That radiantly clasps them above -
    Oh, dower most fair!
    Oh, diadem rare!
Bright crown of her maidenly love.

My heart is a fane of devotion,
My feelings are converts at prayer,
And every thrill of emotion
Makes dearer the crown I would wear.
My soul in its fulness of rapture
Begins its millennial reign,
    Life glows like a sun,
    Love's zenith is won,
And Joy is sole monarch again.

My noonday of life is as morning,
God's light streams approvingly down;
Uncovered, I wait her adorning,
She comes with the beautiful crown!
I'll wear i...

Charles Sangster

Time's Defeat

Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine.    Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health,
That broke all laws of reason unafraid,
And laughed at talk of punishment.

Close ties of blood and friendship, joy of life,
Which reads its music in the major key
And will not listen to a minor strain -
These things and many more are spoils of time.

Yet as a conqueror who only storms
The outposts of a town, and finds the fort
Too strong to be assailed, so time retreats
And knows his impotence.    He cannot take

My three great jewels from the crown of life:
Love, sympathy, and faith; and year on year
He sees them grow in lustre and in worth,
And glowers by me, plucking at his beard,
And dragging, as h...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Cities And Thrones And Powers

Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

Rudyard

Time, Beauty's Friend

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
    Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon -
    "Beautiful still - but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
    That face of April gold.

Then up the summer night the moon arose,
    Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
    And with her rising came a thought to me -
How ever old and ever young she grows,
    And still more lovely she.

Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
    That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
    And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's -
    So old are all things fair.

Then for that fac...

Richard Le Gallienne

In Memory Of Douglas Vernon Cow

    This Poem, Dedicated to His Mother.


    To twilight heads comes Death as comes a friend,
    As with the gentle fading of the year
    Fades rose, folds leaf, falls fruit, and to their end
    Unquestioning draw near,
    Their flowering over, and their fruiting done,
    Fulfilled and finished and going down with the sun.

    But for June's heart there is no comforting
    When her full-throated rose
    Still quick with buds, still thrilling to the air,
    By some stray wind is tossed,
    Her swelling grain that goes
    Heavy to harvesting
    In a black gale is lost,
    And her round grape that purpled to the wine
    Is pinched by some chance frost.
    Ah, then cry out for that lost, lovely rose,
    For the stricken wheat, ...

Muriel Stuart