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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AN OLD WOMAN: IN WAR-TIME by DAVID MORTON

First Line: SHE IS TOO OLD TO LOOK UPON SUCH DAYS
Last Line: MUST SHE TAKE THIS, FRESH WITH HER, TO THE GRAVE?
Subject(s): OLD AGE;

She is too old to look upon such days;
It may be best that she is nearly blind;
Her life has been all gentle words and ways,
The care of children, and things wise and kind.
Summers she spent in tending bush and bloom
Of quaint, old-fashioned plants about the place,
And winters in her dim, high-ceilinged room,
Dreams and the firelight mingling in her face.

She has known naught, in all her quiet life,
Of passions clashing at tremendous grips,
The hate and blood and lust of mortal strife,
And men who die with curses on their lips. . . .
Of all that she has seen, all that life gave,
Must she take this, fresh with her, to the grave?



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