In five-score summers! All new eyes,
New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise;
New woes to weep, new joys to prize;
With nothing left of me and you
In that live century’s vivid view
Beyond a pinch of dust or two;
A century which, if not sublime,
Will show, I doubt not, at its prime,
A scope above this blinkered time.
—Yet what to me how far above?
For I would only ask thereof
That thy worm should be my worm, Love!
16 WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1867.