Classic Poem

The little pilfering hands of hours and days
Bury much loveliness and treasured gold,
Savor and essence, cloud and warm scent and haze,
Small things accustomed, all too frail to hold.
But I would have remembrance full and keen,
Nor yield one leaf, or cloud, or shadow's blue,
One little thrusting wind, one hill's tall green,
The outer way of wonder we passed through.
The fear grows with me that I shall forget,
Never your love, but half-seen things of grace,
Beauty we took and marveled at and set
Aside, half blindly, marking not its place;
This wealth put by, this gold too faint and rare,
I cannot count—and yet, I cannot spare.