How graciously thou wear'st the yoke <br />Of use that does not fail! <br />The grasses, like an anchored smoke, <br />Ride in the bending gale; <br />This knoll is snowed with blosmy manna, <br />And fire-dropt as a seraph's mail. <br /> <br />Here every eve thou stretchest out <br />Untarnishable wing, <br />And marvellously bring'st about <br />Newly an olden thing; <br />Nor ever through like-ordered heaven <br />Moves largely thy grave progressing. <br /> <br />Here every eve thou goest down <br />Behind the self-same hill, <br />Nor ever twice alike go'st down <br />Behind the self-same hill; <br />Nor like-ways is one flame-sopped flower <br />Possessed with glory past its will. <br /> <br />Not twice alike! I am not blind, <br />My sight is live to see; <br />And yet I do complain of thy <br />Weary variety. <br />O Sun! I ask thee less or more, <br />Change not at all, or utterly! <br /> <br />O give me unprevisioned new, <br />Or give to change reprieve! <br />For new in me is olden too, <br />That I for sameness grieve. <br />O flowers! O grasses! be but once <br />The grass and flower of yester-eve! <br /> <br />Wonder and sadness are the lot <br />Of change: thou yield'st mine eyes <br />Grief of vicissitude, but not <br />Its penetrant surprise. <br />Immutability mutable <br />Burthens my spirit and the skies. <br /> <br />O altered joy, all joyed of yore, <br />Plodding in unconned ways! <br />O grief grieved out, and yet once more <br />A dull, new, staled amaze! <br />I dream, and all was dreamed before, <br />Or dream I so? the dreamer says.<br /><br />Francis Thompson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-sinking-sun/
