going and staying

• the moving sun-shapes on the spray,
  the sparkles where the brook was flowing,
  pink faces, plightings, moonlit may,—
  these were the things we wished would stay;
  but they were going.
  
  seasons of blankness as of snow,
  the silent bleed of a world decaying,
  the moan of multitudes in woe,—
  these were the things we wished would go;
  but they were staying.
  
  thomas hardy