I Met Someone

“This year she has changed greatly”— meaning you –

My sanguine friends agree,

And hope thereby to reassure me.

No, child, you never change; neither do I.

Indeed all our lives long

We are still fated to do wrong,

Too fast caught by care of humankind,

Easily vexed and grieved,

Foolishly flattered and deceived;

And yet each knows that the changeless other

Must love and pardon still,

Be the new error what it will:

Assured by that same glint of deathlessness

Which neither can surprise

In any other pair of eyes.

— Robert Graves