'The straw is too old to make pipes of.' -- DON QUIXOTE. YOU ask a 'many-winter'd' Bard Where hides his old vocation? I'll give -- the answer is not hard -- A classic explanation. 'Immortal' though he be, he still, Tithonus-like, grows older, While she, his Muse of Pindus Hill, Still bares a youthful shoulder. Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave Her ageless grace and beauty, They might, betwixt them both, achieve A hymn de Senectute; But She -- She can't grow gray; and so, Her slave, whose hairs are falling, Must e'en his Doric flute forgo, And seek some graver calling, -- Not ill-content to stand aside, To yield to minstrels fitter His singing-robes, his singing-pride, His fancies sweet -- and bitter! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONGS AND THE POET (FOR SARA TEASDALE) by LOUIS UNTERMEYER SHAMEFUL DEATH by WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896) WORK by MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON SS. SIMON & JUDE by JOSEPH BEAUMONT DAPHNE; FOR GRAHAM ROBERTSON by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |