When I am old, and it is spring, And joy leaps dancing, wild and free, Clear out of every living thing, While I command no ecstasy; And to translate the songs of birds Will be beyond my power in words: When Time serves notice on my Muse To leave at last her lyric home, With no extension of her lease -- Then to the blackest pits I come, To see by day the stars' cold light, And in my coffin sleep at night. For when these little songs shall fail, These happy notes that to the world Are puny mole-hills, nothing more, That unto me are Alps of gold -- That toad's dark life must be my own, Buried alive inside a stone. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GUNS AS KEYS: AND THE GREAT GATE SWINGS by AMY LOWELL VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 10. STRESA by SARA TEASDALE SONG FOR THE LUDDITES by GEORGE GORDON BYRON ASLEEP, ASLEEP; MARTYDOM OF SAINT STEPHEN by LUCY ANN BENNETT ON KNOWING WHEN TO STOP by L. J. BRIDGMAN REMEMBRANCE by MARGARET E. BRUNER |