The Touch of Time

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  Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
  Of many a hope that flared against the sky
  To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
  Has touched you with no desecrating hand;
  Your beauty wins a ripeness sweet and bland
  As opulent summer, and your glancing eye
  Glows with a deeper lustre, and your sigh
  Of love is still my clamouring heart’s command.

  Yet what if all your fairness were defaced,
  Wilted by passionate whirlwinds, battle-scarred,
  Your skin of delicate satin hard and dry?
  Still you would be the laughing girl who graced
  A gloomy manhood, by forebodings marred,
  In the deep wood where still we love to lie.

© John Le Gay Brereton