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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


OLD AGE by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS

Poet Analysis

First Line: IT MAY BE, WHEN THIS CITY OF THE NINE GATES
Last Line: WHICH GOD MAY HAVE GROWN TIRED OF RECKONING,
Subject(s): OLD AGE;

It may be, when this city of the nine gates
Is broken down by ruinous old age,
And no one upon any pilgrimage
Comes knocking, no one for an audience waits,
And no bright foraging troop of bandit moods
Rides out on the brave folly of any quest,
But weariness, the restless shadow of rest,
Hoveringly upon the city broods;
It may be, then, that those remembering
And sleepless watchers on the crumbling towers
Shall lose the count of the disastrous hours
Which God may have grown tired of reckoning,



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