When the first vague years, the years of questions and toys,

Resolved into years of the boy with his nose in old fable,

It was good to hear a father’s voice

Across the lull of the breakfast table.

When the second fate, the years of answer and choice,

Diffused into years of the youth on the parapet,

Where maps went rainbowing round such tallness

In outspread valley of my whim,

Then earth was good in multicolored allness,

And I loved all of it. But loved not him.

The third fate ambushed. Then the three roads met;

I faced the enemy the Sphinx foretold.

Again, again the ancient rites unfold.

Must all men play out fables to the end?

Are men themselves not fates?—to bend

Their chains to rungs? I will out bless that curse,

I praise alike the young years and the old:

The enemy the Sphinx foretold, I slew;

That, too, was good—forgive my doubt, my smallness—

It all is good, it all is good, him I loved.