I WALK on grass as soft as wool, Or fluff that our old fingers pull From beaver or from miniver, -- Sweet-sounding as a dulcimer, -- A poor old woman creeping where The young can never pry and stare. I am so old, I should be gone, -- Too old to warm in the kind sun My wrinkled face; my hat that flaps Will hide it, and my cloak has laps That trail upon the grass as I Like some warm shade of spring creep by. And all the laden fruit-boughs spread Into a silver sound, but dead Is the wild dew I used to know, Nor will the morning music grow. I sit beneath these coral boughs Where the air's silver plumage grows And flows like water with a sigh. Fed with sweet milk of lilies, I Still feel the dew like amber gums, That from the richest spice-tree comes, Drip down upon my turbanned head, Trembling and ancient as the Dead, Beneath these floating branches' shade. Yet long ago, a lovely maid, On grass, a fading silver tune Played on an ancient dulcimer, (And soft as wool of miniver) I walked like a young antelope, And Day was but an Ethiop, Beside my fairness shining there -- Like black shade seemed the brightest air When I was lovely as the snows, -- A fading starriness that flows . . . Then, far-off Death seemed but the shade That those heavenly branches made. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOST CHILD by ST. CLAIR ADAMS MOST ANY BIT OF LANDSCAPE by JEAN CAMERON AGNEW QUATRAIN: THE PARCAE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ON SICK LEAVE, 1916 by HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 48. AL-WADOOD by EDWIN ARNOLD WE WALKED AMONG THE WHISPERING PINES by JOHN HENRY BONER |