Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GREY HAIRS, by WILLIAM HAMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GREY HAIRS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Welcome, grey hairs, whose light I gladly trust
Last Line: With hallelujahs this cygnean lay.
Subject(s): Aging


WELCOME, Grey Hairs, whose light I gladly trust
To guide me to my peaceful bed of dust:
My life's bright stars, whose wakeful eyes shut mine,
Stand on my head as tapers on my shrine.
The world's grand noise of nothing, which invades
My soul, exclude from death's approaching shades;
But as the day is usher'd in by one
And the same star, that shows the day is done,
This twilight of my head, this doubtful sphere,
My body's evening, my soul's morning star,
Th' allay of white amongst the browner hairs,
As well the birth as death of day declares;
As he, who from the hill saw the moist tomb
Of earth, together with her pregnant womb,
This mingled colour, with ambiguous strife,
Demonstrates my decaying into life.
Thus life and death compound the world; each weed,
That fades, revives by sowing its own seed;
Matter, suppos'd the whole creation,
Is nothing but form and privation:
No borrow'd tresses then, no cheating dye,
Shall to false life my dying locks belie:
I shall a perfect microcosm grow,
When, as the Alps, I crowned am with snow.
I will believe this white the milky way,
Which leads unto the court of endless day.
Then let my life's flame so intensely burn,
That all my hairs may into ashes turn,
Whence may arise a Phoenix, to repay
With Hallelujahs this Cygnean lay.





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