The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades? - Edgar Lee Masters

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlesssly.
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there-
They must fly so to catch their food.
And if you have ever lost your way at night
In the deep wood near Miller's Ford,
And dodged this way and now that,
Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,
Trying to find the path,
You should understand I sought the way
With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings
Were wanderings in the quest.

Reckless of my mortality,
Strengthen me to behold a face,
To know the spirit of a beloved one
Yet to endure, yet to dare!

Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see
That the branches of a tree
Spread no wider than its roots.
And how shall the soul of a man
Be larger than the life he has lived?