We Hurry On, Nor Passing Note Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

We hurry on, nor passing note
The rounded hedges white with May;
For golden clouds before us float
To lead our dazzled sight astray.
We say, 'they shall indeed be sweet
'The summer days that are to be'-
The ages murmur at our feet
The everlasting mystery.


We seek for Love to make our own,
But clasp him not for all our care
Of outspread arms; we gain alone
The flicker of his yellow hair
Caught now and then through glancing vine,
How rare, how fair, we dare not tell;
We know those sunny locks entwine
With ruddy-fruited asphodel.


A little life, a little love,
Young men rejoicing in their youth,
A doubtful twilight from above,
A glimpse of Beauty and of Truth,-
And then, no doubt, spring-loveliness
Expressed in hawthorns white and red,
The sprouting of the meadow grass,
But churchyard weeds about our head.