Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Hymns and Poems. VI. Unchanging ChangesSir John Bowring (17921872)
O
They seem to linger while they last,
But are dim dreamings when they’re past.
No traces,—rolling years have cleft
All memories,—of all signs bereft.
And where they perished, whence they rose,
No now existing record shows.
And seasons after seasons draw
Their lines without a fault or flaw.
Treads where his vanished fathers trod,
And views the skies and turns the sod.
Scattered o’er earth’s prolific ground
The seeds of coming man are found.
While rolls the ever-flowing sea
Into thy gulf, Eternity!