perhaps we might have held them fast, after all. If only we might bring
them back, surely we would find some way to dwell in them for ever. They
came upon us so suddenly out of heaven, like some dazzling bird, and we
were so bewildered with the wonder of their coming that we stretched out
our hands to seize them, only when they were already spreading their
wings for flight. But O if the divine bird would but visit us again!
What golden nets we would spread for him! What a golden cage of worship
we would make ready! Our eyes would never leave his strange plumage, nor
would we miss one note of his strange song. But alas! now that we are
grown wise and watchful, that "moment eternal" comes to us no more.
Perhaps too that sad wisdom which has come to us with the years would
least of all avail us, should such moments by some magic chance suddenly
return. For it is one of the dangers of the retrospective habit that it
incapacitates us for the realization of the present hour. Much dwelling
on last year's snow will make us forget the summer flowers. Dreaming of
fair faces that are gone, we will look with unseeing eyes into the fair
faces that companion us still. To the Spring we say: "What of all your
blossom, and all your singing! Autumn is already at your heels, like a
shadow; and Winter waits for you like a marble tomb." To the hope that
still may beckon we say: "Well, what though you be fulfilled, you will
pass, like the rest. I shall see you come. We shall dwell together for a
while, and then you will go; and all will be as it was before, all as if
you had never come at all." For the retrospective mood, of necessity,
begets the anticipatory; we see everything finished before it is begun,
and welcome and valediction blend together on our lips. "That which hath
been is now; and that which is to be hath already been."

In every kiss sealed fast
To feel the first kiss and forebode the last--