LOOKING back now, after fifty years and more, when the main work of life is done, When its acquisitions, its results, its alliances, are before me, and but few new elements remain to be added, I ask myself: What is the gist, what the end, what the gain of it all? What shall I take with me now when Death comes—as one coming homeward takes a flower in his hand for a token that he has strayed in gracious fields? Is it applause and fame? But this, if it came to me, were only as a little stir of wind might be, to one seeking his lover in the night: a pleasant breeze—that yet might blow his lamp out! Is it all the pleasure of life that I have had—in the beautiful woods and on the mountains, in the sun and in the waters, in social life and jollity, in my actual work? Yea, these things were beautiful, but I have passed and left them and can return no more. The fields remain, but the flowers I plucked there are fading already on my bosom Is it all my acquisitions—of goods, of skill, of knowledge, of character—but what are they for myself but weariness, save I can yield them to the hands of one I love? O little heart, where my friends my dear ones live, thou alone remainest! While I live thou livest, and while thou livest they live, whose home is within thy walls. Methinks that when I die I still shall hold Thee; Methinks that when the world fades my little heart shall grow, And grow and grow into another World, And be my Paradise where I shall find My lovers, and they me, for evermore. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CHARGE OF THE BREAD BRIGADE by EZRA POUND IN EARLIEST SPRING by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE: THE POWER OF MUSIC by SAMUEL LISLE SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS; FLOREAT ETONA by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED A MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY by HENRY VAN DYKE A TOUCH OF NATURE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |