Last Poems and "The Burial of Sophocles"

"We who have bowed ourselves to Time"

We who have bowed ourselves to time Now arm an uneventful rime With panoply of flowers Through the long summer hours. . . .

But now our fierce and warlike Muse Doth soft companionship refuse, And we must mount and ride Upon a steed untried. . . .

We who have led by gradual ways Our placid life to sterner days And for old quiet things Have set the strife of kings,

Who battled have with bloody hands Through evil times in barren lands, To whom the voice of guns Speaks and no longer stuns,

Calm, though with death encompassed, That watch the hours go overhead Knowing too well we must With all men come to dust. . . .

Crave of our masters' clemency Silence a little space that we Upon their ear may force Tales of our trodden course.