On the day when youth is no more upon me I will write of the leaves and the moon in a tree top! I will sing then the song, long in the making -- When the stress of youth is put away from me. How can I ever be written out as men say? Surely it is merely an interference with the long song -- This that I am now doing. But when the spring of it is worn like the old moon And the eaten leaves are lace upon the cold earth -- Then I will rise up in my great desire -- Long at the birth -- and sing me the youth-song! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI: 4. THE MOON'S ORCHESTRA by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER A DIALOGUE ANTHEM by GEORGE HERBERT ON LIBERTY AND SLAVERY by GEORGE MOSES HORTON TRAVEL by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON SEVEN SAD SONNETS: 3. THE WANDERING ONE by MARY REYNOLDS ALDIS LITANY TO SATAN by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE LOST TREASURE by MATHILDE BLIND |