Cities and Thrones and Powers

Cities and Thrones and Powers
 Stand  in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
 Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
 To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
 The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
 She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
 Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
 And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
 To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind
 To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
 As bold as she:
That in our very death,
 And  burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
 "See how our works endure!"


Rudyard Kipling

If You Forget Me

Just because I like it, here is a lovely poem by Pablo Neruda.

---

If you forget me
I want you to know one thing
You know how this is

If I look at the crystal moon
At the red branch of the slow autumn at my window
If I touch near the fire the impalpable ash
Or the wrinkled body of the log
Everything carries me to you
As if everything that exists - aromas, light, metals
Were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me

Well, now
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you, little by little

If suddenly you forget me
Do not look for me
For I shall already have forgotten you

If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
Remember....
That on that day, at that hour
I shall lift my arms, and my roots will set off to seek another land

But... If each day, each hour
You feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness
If each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me
Ahh my love, ahh my own
In me all that fire is repeated
In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten
My love feeds on your love, beloved
And as long as you live it will be in your arms
Without leaving mine