IN my lost childhood old folks said to me, "Now is the time and season of your bliss; All joy is in the hope of joy to be, Not in possession; and in after years You will look back with longing sighs and tears To the young days when you from care were free." It was not true; they nurtured idle fears; I never saw so good a day as this! And youth and I have parted: long ago I looked into my glass, and saw one day A little silver line that told me so: At first I shut my eyes and cried, and then I hid it under girlish flowers, but when Persuasion would not make my mate to stay, I bowed my faded head, and said, "Amen!" And all my peace is since she went away. My window opens toward the autumn woods; I see the ghosts of thistles walk the air O'er the long, level stubble-land that broods; Beneath the herbless rocks that jutting lie, Summer has gathered her white family Of shrinking daisies; all the hills are bare, And in the meadows not a limb of buds Through the brown bushes showeth anywhere. Dear, beauteous season, we must say good-bye, And can afford to, we have been so blest, And farewells suit the time; the year doth lie With cloudy skirts composed, and pallid face Hid under yellow leaves, with touching grace, So that her bright-haired sweetheart of the sky The image of her prime may not displace. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE TO DUTY by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SUNDERED PATHS by MATHILDE BLIND A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 7 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 28 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH TO THE LORD LOVE (AT THE APPROACH OF OLD AGE) by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY AND JESUS WEPT by MATTHEW BRIDGES ON MR. CHURCHILL'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY (NOVEMBER 30, 1944) by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 13. TROCHAIC VERSE: THE NINETH EPIGRAM by THOMAS CAMPION |