Alice Corbin

From “Songs from a Book of Airs”

THEN, as the summons came,

I felt my name

Roll out in flame

Along the midnight’s black and baseless floor.

My life grew hour by hour—

Bud, stalk, and flower:

How slight a thing hath power

On life Time’s everlasting light to pour!

Yet, for that moment brief,

I was myself; the chief

Actor; Time’s thief:

Time that steals all things gilds ere it takes the leaf.

Yet even this went by:

Too late! I could but cry

This was that I

I only came to know when it was time to die!