TODAY HAS NEVER BEEN BEFORE

Today has never been before,
Nor will it come again;
Today, then, be Time’s paramour
To live the joy and pain.

Today achieves the ultimate
Of countless yesterdays;
Today, the only open gate
Of tomorrow’s unknown ways.

The living pulse-beats of the earth
Throb echoes through the brain;
The agonies of death and birth,
The balm of sun and rain.

Fling wide the windows to the dawn,
Sing to the silent street;
Scatter the dew-drops on the lawn
With tireless dancing feet.

For about the sundial plinth
Are clustered daffodils,
And, here and there, a hyacinth
Her heady fragrance spills.

And shyly, from the border plots,
The polyanthus peeps;
A blackbird trills where refuse rots
On last year’s compost heap.

With living pulse-beats of the earth,
The mind, receptive, throbs;
And, in the echoes of her mirth,
Are heard the whispered sobs.

Beauty and ugliness, to find
With mingled joy and pain;
And tears with laughter intertwined,
May not be known again.

Nor all of life, nor all of living,
Nor all of love and hate;
Nor all of trespass and forgiving
Today may propagate:

Live, then, the hour, and live the lover;
Absorb the joy and sorrow;
And, tired at last, slip slowly over
The dark edge of tomorrow.