I WALK on grass as soft as wool, Or fluff that our old fingers pull From beaver or from miniver, -- Sweet-sounding as a dulcimer, -- A poor old woman creeping where The young can never pry and stare. I am so old, I should be gone, -- Too old to warm in the kind sun My wrinkled face; my hat that flaps Will hide it, and my cloak has laps That trail upon the grass as I Like some warm shade of spring creep by. And all the laden fruit-boughs spread Into a silver sound, but dead Is the wild dew I used to know, Nor will the morning music grow. I sit beneath these coral boughs Where the air's silver plumage grows And flows like water with a sigh. Fed with sweet milk of lilies, I Still feel the dew like amber gums, That from the richest spice-tree comes, Drip down upon my turbanned head, Trembling and ancient as the Dead, Beneath these floating branches' shade. Yet long ago, a lovely maid, On grass, a fading silver tune Played on an ancient dulcimer, (And soft as wool of miniver) I walked like a young antelope, And Day was but an Ethiop, Beside my fairness shining there -- Like black shade seemed the brightest air When I was lovely as the snows, -- A fading starriness that flows . . . Then, far-off Death seemed but the shade That those heavenly branches made. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COUSIN NANCY by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT RUPERT BROOKE by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON THE DESERTED VILLAGE by OLIVER GOLDSMITH NEW YEAR'S EVE by THOMAS HARDY MILES KEOGH'S HORSE by JOHN MILTON HAY A CONTEMPLATION UPON FLOWERS by HENRY KING (1592-1669) |