Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ODE OF AGE, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ODE OF AGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a sweetness in autumnal days
Last Line: At the celestial door.
Subject(s): Aging


THERE is a sweetness in autumnal days,
Which many a lip doth praise;
When the earth, tired a little and grown mute
Of song, and having borne its fruit,
Rests for a little space ere winter come.
It is not sad to turn the face towards home,
Even though it shows the journey nearly done;
It is not sad to mark the westering sun,
Even though we know the imminent night doth come.
Silence there is, indeed, for song,
Twilight for noon;
But for the steadfast soul and strong
Life's autumn is as June.

As June itself, but clearer, calmer far;
Here come no passion-gusts to mar,
No thunder-clouds or rains to beat
To earth the blossoms and the wheat.
No high tumultuous noise
Of youth's self-seeking joys,
But a cold radiance white
As the moon shining on a frosty night.

To-morrow is as yesterday, scant change,
Little of new or strange,
No glamour of false hope to daze,
Nor glory to amaze,
Even the old passionate love of love or child
A temperate affection mild,
And ever the recurring thought
Returning, though unsought:
How strange the Scheme of Things! how brief a span
The little life of man!
And ever as we mark them, fleeter and more fleet,
The days and months and years, gliding with winged feet.

And ever as the hair grows grey,
And the eyes dim,
And the lithe form which toiled the live-long day,
The stalwart limb,
Begin to stiffen and grow slow,
A higher joy we know:
To spend the remnant of the waning year,
Ere comes the deadly chill,
In works of mercy, and to cheer
The feet which toil against life's rugged hill!
To have known the trouble and the fret,
To have known it, and to cease
In a pervading peace,
Too calm to suffer pain, too living to forget,
And reaching down a succouring hand
To where the sufferers are,
To lift them to the tranquil heights afar,
Whereon Time's conquerors stand.

And when the fruitful hours are done,
How sweet at set of sun
To gather up the fair laborious day! --
To have struck some blow for right
With tongue or pen;
To have smoothed the path to light
For wandering men;
To have chased some fiend of Ill away;
A little backward to have thrust
The instant powers of Drink and Lust,
To have borne down gaunt Despair,
To have dealt a blow at Care!
How sweet to light again the glow
Of hotter fires than youth's, tho' the calm blood runs slow!

Oh! is there any joy,
Of all that come to girl or boy
Or manhood's calmer weal and ease,
To vie with these?
Here is some fitting profit day by day
Which naught can render less;
Some glorious gain Fate cannot take away,
Nor Time depress.
Sad brother, fainting on your road!
Poor sister, whom the righteous shun!
There comes for you, ere life and strength be done,
An arm to bear your load.
A feeble body, maybe bent, and old,
But bearing 'midst the chills of age
A deeper glow than youth's; a nobler rage;
A calm heart yet not cold.
A man or woman, weak perhaps, and spent,
To whom pursuit of gold or fame
Is as a fire grown cold, an empty name,
Whom thoughts of Love no more allure,
Who in a self-made nunnery dwell,
A cloistered calm and pure,
A beatific peace greater than tongue can tell.

And sweet it is to take,
With something of the eager haste of youth,
Some fainter glimpse of Truth
For its own sake;
To observe the ways of bee, or plant, or bird;
To trace in Nature the ineffable Word,
Which by the gradual wear of secular time,
Has worked its work sublime;
To have touched, with strenuous gropings dim,
Nature's extremest outward rim;
To have found some weed or shell unknown before;
To advance Thought's infinite march a footpace more;
To make or to declare laws just and sage;
These are the joys of Age.

Or by the evening hearth, in the old chair,
With children's children at our knees,
So like, yet so unlike the little ones of old --
Some little lad with curls of gold,
Some little maid demurely fair,
To sit, girt round with ease,
And feel how sweet it is to live,
Careless what fate may give;
To think, with gentle yearning mind
Of dear souls who have crossed the Infinite Sea;
To muse with cheerful hope of what shall be
For those we leave behind
When the night comes which knows no earthly morn;
Yet mingled with the young in hopes and fears,
And bringing from the treasure-house of years
Some fair-set counsel long-time worn;
To let the riper days of life,
The tumult and the strife,
Go by, and in their stead
Dwell with the living past, so living, yet so dead:
The mother's kiss upon the sleeper's brow,
The little fish caught from the brook,
The dead child-sister's gentle voice and look,
The school-days and the father's parting hand;
The days so far removed, yet oh! so near,
So full of precious memories dear;
The riddle of flying Time, so hard to understand!

Not in keen eye or ear
Dwells our chief profit here.
We are not as the brutes, who fade and make no sign;
We are sustained where'er we go,
In happiness and woe,
By some indwelling faculty divine,
Which lifts us from the deep
Of failing senses dim, and duller brain,
And wafts us back to youth again;
And as a vision fair dividing sleep,
Pierces the vasts behind, the voids before,
And opens to us an invisible gate,
And sets our winged footsteps, scorning Time and Fate,
At the celestial door.





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