Here Is a Face

Here is a face too lovely to be lost

Among the many that Time bears away-

Time the old gardener, with the year's decay

Flung in his gunnysack, as leaves are tossed.

She has the spirit of an autumn day,

She moves like wind upon the short brown grass.

The dusty bushes bend to let her pass,

As if she were the breeze that cannot stay

But brings a momentary fragrantness.

Yet sun and moon must journey overhead

And in the ancient ruts the years will press,

Heedless of her among so many dead.

And then, please God, I shall have perished too

Nor envy for her sake what Time may do.