WHAT do you find to boast of in our age, To boast of now, my friendly sonneteer, And not to blush for, later? By what line Do you entrain from Mainz to Regions saner? Count our achievements and uplift my heart; Blazon our fineness, Optimist, I toil Whilst you crow cocklike. But I cannot see What's left behind us for a heritage For our young children? What but nameless fear? What creeds have we to teach, legends to twine Saner than spun our dams? Or what's there saner That we've devised to comfort those who part, One for some years to walk the stone-clad soil, One to his fathom-deep bed? What coin have we For ransom when He grimly lays his siege Whose dart is sharpened for our final hurt? I think we do not think; we deem more fair Earth with unthought on death; we deem him gainer Whose brow unshadowed shows no wrinkled trail Of the remembrance of the countless slain; Who sets the world to fitful melody— To fitful minstrelsy that's summer's liege When all the summer's sun-kissed fountains spurt Kisses of bubbling sound about our hair. I think we think that singing soul the gainer Who disremembers that spent youth must fail, That after autumn comes, few leaves remain And all the well-heads freeze, and melody O'er frozen waters grows too hoarse with age To keep us from extremity of fear. When agèd poets pen another line And agèd maidens coif their locks in saner And staider snoods; when winter of the heart Comes on and beds beneath the frozen soil Gape open—where's your grinning melody? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 14 by ALFRED TENNYSON THE SAD MOTHER by KATHARINE TYNAN ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS: PART 1: 16. PERSUASION by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE MORAL FABLES: THE SWALLOW, AND THE OTHER BIRDS by AESOP ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 8. ON LEAVING HOLLAND by MARK AKENSIDE CROWNED AND BURIED by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: THE CASTLE OF KING MACBETH by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON VERSES: THE THIRD BOY by JOHN BYROM THE ADIEU; WRITTEN .. THE IMPRESSION AUTHOR WOULD SOON DIE by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |