The Past

The Past is flowing through my thoughts—
       Flowing like a sea;
With all its billows dancing bright
Over what?—an undermight
       Of darkling loss and destiny.
Still it floweth through my thoughts—
       Floweth like a sea;
While of worn hope I ask alway,
Like an unsought cast-astray—
       What can the future bring to me?

And hope herself admits: To thee
       But a darkening scene—
Only slow days of care and doubt,
Only a dreary lengthening out,
       Of what this later past hath been.