[A Lyric]: ‘If Time and Space, as Sages say’

by Eliot · Cluster: Time · Tempus Fugit · Clock

Abstract

Early carpe-diem lyric: since time and space may be illusory, lovers should pluck the brief flowers of love; meditation on transience and the eternity of a single day.

Connections

Topoi: Carpe Diem, Tempus Fugit Motifs: Flowers, Time Themes & Concepts: Transience, Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Lyric

Testo integrale / Full text

[A Lyric]: ‘If Time and Space, as Sages say’
If Time and Space, as Sages say‚
   Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
   No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
   To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
   Has lived eternity.
The flowers I gave thee when the dew
   Was trembling on the vine,
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
   To suck the eglantine.
So let us haste to pluck anew
   Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though our days of love be few
   Yet let them be divine.

Song: ‘If space and time, as sages say’
If space and time, as sages say,
   Are things that cannot be,
The fly that lives a single day
   Has lived as long as we.
But let us live while yet we may,
   While love and life are free,
For time is time, and runs away,
   Though sages disagree.
The flowers I sent thee when the dew
   Was trembling on the vine
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
   To suck the eglantine.
But let us haste to pluck anew
   Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though the flowers of life be few
   Yet let them be divine.