Old minstrels chanting out of faded time,
Since he who counts all years gone by alone
Makes any year his own.

And when one day you are a lover too,
Come back to her who bore you, dear,
Tell out your tale; you shall the better woo
For every word that from her lips you hear,
For she made love most clear.

Most clear for him who sits beside you now;
There was a certain frost that fell
Before its time upon a summer bough,--
And how at last that reckoning was well,
She for your love shall tell.

Labour to build your house, but ever keep
That greater garden fresh in mind,
That England with its bird-song buried deep
In cool great woods where chivalry can find
The province of its kind.

Be great or little your inheritance,
Know there shall number in that dower
No treasure from the treasuries of chance
So rare as that you came the perfect flower
Of love's most perfect hour.

Go now, my son. Be all I might have been.
(Ask her. She knows, and none but she.)