My youth was no more than a dark, looming storm Made bright here and there by transitory suns; Thunder and rain have made such havoc of its form That my garden scarcely shows what red fruits it had once. So at last I have come to the Autumn of ideas, And I must make use of the spade and the rakes To restore the flooded ground till its form reappears Where hollows great as tombs the delving water makes. And who knows if the new flowers that dreaming I see Will discover in this soil washed like sand on a bay The mystic nutriment that would set their force free? -O sorrow! O sorrow! Time eats life away And the Enemy in hiding who gnaws at our side On the blood we are losing grows and is fortified. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUNKER HILL by GEORGE HENRY CALVERT THE CALL TO THE COLORS by ARTHUR GUITERMAN HIS GRANGE, OR PRIVATE WEALTH by ROBERT HERRICK THE QUAKER WIDOW by BAYARD TAYLOR MARGARET'S SONG by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE STANZAS TO AN AFFECTIONATE AND PIOUS PARENT, ON THE DEATH OF HER CHILD by BERNARD BARTON |