Poems (Craik)/Day by Day

by Dinah Maria Craik

For works with similar titles, see Day by Day.

DAY BY DAY.

VERY day has its dawn,
 Its soft and silent eve,
Its noontide hours of bliss or bale:
 Why should we grieve?

Why do we heap huge mounds of years
 Before us and behind,
And scorn the little days that pass
 Like angels on the wind?

Each turning round a small sweet face
 As beautiful as near;
Because it is so small a face
 We will not see it clear:

We will not clasp it as it flies,
 And kiss its lips and brow:
We will not bathe our wearied souls
 In its delicious Now.

And so it turns from us, and goes
 Away in sad disdain:
Though we would give oar lives for it,
 It never comes again.

Yet, every day has its dawn,
 Its noontide and its eve:
Live while we live, giving God thanks—
 He will not let us grieve.