Time's Scythe

Sonnet XII

                ~ William Shakespeare 

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
     And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
     Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. 

Twilight Hour

Early March

               ~ by Siegfried Sassoon 

March having come this year mild, hazy-skied and calm,
With hill-top airs from northward breathing frost-like smell,
I dawdle along the lane that leads to Sundial Farm.

Beguilements (which my middle-age can't yet dispel)
Steal into me. Rejuvenescence works its charm.
Designlessly in love with life unlived, I go
Content with the mere fact that fields are drying fast
And tiny beads of bud along the hedge foreshow
The blackthorn winter that will come too late to last.

Beyond that bare untidy orchard, now and then,
One thrush half tells how in the twilight hour he'll sing
To no one but himself his wild belief in spring
Meanwhile I'm thankful for this almost dusty road,
Celandine's lowly gold, and daylight lengthening when
The winterbournes, like time, past February have flowed.