Sonnet

NAUGHT is lost to us save every hour.
The gold this folly costs can be repaid,
The temples built again; the trampled flower
Will bloom once more; the world can be remade.
Our friends are still, and there are other friends;
Love stays, or we find loves we cherish more.
Aloneness, hours of pain — these have their ends,
And soon, for us whose years are scarce a score.

But when we measure hour by hour the day,
And say, “I give this; it is part of me!”
And know, of all the things we seem to pay,
That these alone are lost eternally —
We know that what we give is very great,
And find in this the reason for our hate.