Canto XLV
We ranging down this lower track,The path we came by, thorn and flower,Is shadow’d by the growing hour,Lest life should fail in looking back.
So be it: there no shade can lastIn that deep dawn behind the tomb,But clear from marge to marge shall bloomThe eternal landscape of the past;
A lifelong tract of time reveal’d;The fruitful hours of still increase;Days order’d in a wealthy peace,And those five years its richest field.
O Love! thy province were not large,A bounded field, nor stretching far,Look also, Love, a brooding star,A rosy warmth from marge to marge.