WHEN you are old, and I -- if that should be -- Lying afar in undistinguished earth, And you no more have all your will of me, To teach me morals, idleness, and mirth, But, curtained from the bleak December nights, You sit beside the else-deserted fire And 'neath the glow of double-polèd lights, Till your alert eyes and quick judgement tire, Turn some new poet's page, and to yourself Praise his new satisfaction of new need, Then pause and look a little toward the shelf Where my books stand which none but you shall read: And say: "I too was not ungently sung When I was happy, beautiful, and young." |