IN my lost childhood old folks said to me, "Now is the time and season of your bliss; All joy is in the hope of joy to be, Not in possession; and in after years You will look back with longing sighs and tears To the young days when you from care were free." It was not true; they nurtured idle fears; I never saw so good a day as this! And youth and I have parted: long ago I looked into my glass, and saw one day A little silver line that told me so: At first I shut my eyes and cried, and then I hid it under girlish flowers, but when Persuasion would not make my mate to stay, I bowed my faded head, and said, "Amen!" And all my peace is since she went away. My window opens toward the autumn woods; I see the ghosts of thistles walk the air O'er the long, level stubble-land that broods; Beneath the herbless rocks that jutting lie, Summer has gathered her white family Of shrinking daisies; all the hills are bare, And in the meadows not a limb of buds Through the brown bushes showeth anywhere. Dear, beauteous season, we must say good-bye, And can afford to, we have been so blest, And farewells suit the time; the year doth lie With cloudy skirts composed, and pallid face Hid under yellow leaves, with touching grace, So that her bright-haired sweetheart of the sky The image of her prime may not displace. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARMOR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON A BROOK IN THE CITY by ROBERT FROST SCHOOLTEACHER by ANGELO PHILIP BERTOCCI RELEASE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THE EARL'S RETURN by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE SKILFUL LISTENER by JOHN VANCE CHENEY ONE PASSES BY by GLENN CLAIRMONTE |