GROWING old, and looking back Wistfully along his track, I have heard him try to tell, With a smile a little grim, Why a world he loved so well Had no larger fruit of him: -- 'T was one summer, when the time Loitered like drowsy rhyme, Sauntering on his idle way Somehow he had lost a day. Whether 't was the daisies meek, Keeping Sabbath all the week, Birds without one work-day even, Or the little pagan bees, Busy all the sunny seven, -- Whether sleep at afternoon, Or much rising with the moon, Couching with the morning star, Or enchantments like to these, Had confused his calendar, -- "It is Saturday," men said. "Nay, 't is Friday," obstinate Clung the notion in his head. Had the cloudy sisters three, In their weaving of his fate, Dozed, and dropped a stitch astray? "'T was the losing of that day Cost my fortune," he would say. "On that day I should have writ Screeds of wisdom and of wit; Should have sung the missing song, Wonderful, and sweet, and strong; Might have solved men's doubt and dream With some waiting truth supreme. If another thing there be That a groping hand may miss In a twilight world like this, Those lost hours its grace and glee Surely would have brought to me." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GUARDIAN ANGEL (A PICTURE AT FANO) by ROBERT BROWNING TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR EUROPE by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE QUAKER WIDOW by BAYARD TAYLOR TICHBORNE'S ELEGY, WRITTEN IN THE TOWER BEFORE HIS EXECUTION by CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE OLD CAMP; WRITTEN IN A ROMAN FORTIFICATION IN BAVARIA by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN TO A WITHERED ROSE by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS |