YOUR hair is scant, my friend, and mine is scanter, On heads snowed white by Time, the disenchanter; In place of joyous beams and jovial twinkles, Behold, old boy, our faces scored with wrinkles! Sparkles your legal lore with salt that's Attic! But, ah! those twinges (gout?), those pangs rheumatic! With muse of mine no more the public quarrels, But, Lord! how cold I feel despite the laurels! If spiced your fame, not so your milk or sago: Only mild diet suits a sharp lumbago. While as for me -- what critic "puff" avails one Whose own short breath (asthmatic!) almost fails one? The world we deemed so rife with fadeless prizes -- Which of us most its hollow show despises? We'd yield our gains for just one marvellous minute Of our lost youth, with all youth's glory in it! Yet from this House of Life, now wrapped in twilight, Gleams 'mid the shadowy roof Faith's magic skylight; Whereby as night steals down through weird gradations, We hail the glow of heavenly constellations. So, as through darkness only dawn the graces Of God's calm stars and lofty shining spaces, That night called death which shrouds our bodies breathless May flood the heaven of soul with peace made deathless. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 27 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE FROZEN GRAIL (TO PEARY AND HIS MEN) by ELSA BARKER GIVE NOT WITH YOUR HANDS by MACKNIGHT BLACK THE ORDER OF NATURE by ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS HIS NAME WAS KEKO by THEODORE BRIDGMAN BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS: BOOK 1. THE FIFTH SONG by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) LAST DAYS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH by EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER-LYTTON |