SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

I

I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 5 I saw in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the