Explore "Time's Defeat" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Time has made conquest of so many things / That once were mine. Swift-footed, eager youth / That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health, / That broke all laws of reason unafraid, / And laughed at talk of punishment.
Close ties of blood and friendship, joy of life, / Which reads its music in the major key / And will not listen to a minor strain- / These things and many more are spoils of time.
Yet as a conqueror who only storms / The outposts of a town, and finds the fort / Too strong to be assailed, so time retreats / And knows his impotence. He cannot take
My three great jewels from the crown of life: / Love, sympathy, and faith; and year on year / He sees them grow in lustre and in worth, / And glowers by me, plucking at his beard, / And dragging, as he goes, a useless scythe.
Once in the dark he plotted with his friend / Grim Death, to steal my treasures. Death replied: / ‘They are immortal, and beyond thy reach, / I could but set them in another sphere, / To shine with greater lustre.'
Time and Death / Passed on together, knowing their defeat; / And I am singing by the road of life.