A little while to walk with thee, dear child; <br />To lean on thee my weak and weary head; <br />Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild, <br />The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead. <br /> <br />A little while to hold thee and to stand, <br />By harvest-fields of bending golden corn; <br />Then the predestined silence, and thine hand, <br />Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn. <br /> <br />A little while to love thee, scarcely time <br />To love thee well enough; then time to part, <br />To fare through wintry fields alone and climb <br />The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art. <br /> <br />Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire, <br />The winter and the darkness: one by one <br />The roses fall, the pale roses expire <br />Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.<br /><br />Ernest Christopher Dowson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/transition-21/
