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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO, by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: O, the rain, the weary, dreary rain Last Line: Twenty golden years ago! Subject(s): Disappointment; Holidays; New Year; Past; Time | |||
O, the rain, the weary, dreary rain, How it plashes on the window-sill! Night, I guess too, must be on the wane, Strass and Gass around are grown so still. Here I sit, with coffee in my cup -- Ah! 'twas rarely I beheld it flow In the taverns where I loved to sup Twenty golden years ago! Twenty years ago, alas! -- but stay, On my life, 'tis half-past twelve o'clock! After all, the hours do slip away -- Come, here goes to burn another block! For the night, or morn, is wet and cold, And my fire is dwindling rather low: -- I had fire enough, when young and bold, Twenty golden years ago! Dear! I don't feel well at all, somehow: Few in Weimar dream how bad I am; Floods of tears grow common with me now, High-Dutch floods, that Reason cannot dam. Doctors think I'll neither live nor thrive If I mope at home so -- I don't know -- Am I living now? I was alive Twenty golden years ago! Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone, Not quite bookless, though, unless I chuse, Left with nought to do, except the Muse -- O! this, this is hard for me to bear, Me, who whilome lived so much en haut, Me, who broke all hearts like chinaware Twenty golden years ago! Perhaps, 'tis better: -- Time's defacing waves Long have quenched the radiance of my brow -- They who curse me nightly from their graves Scarce could love me where they living now; But my loneliness hath darker ills -- Such dun-duns as Conscience, Thought and Co., Awful Gorgons! worse than tailors' bills Twenty golden years ago! Did I paint a fifth of what I feel, O, how plaintive you would ween I was! But I won't, albeit I have a deal More to wail about than Kerner has! Kerner's tears are wept for withered flowers, Mine for withered hopes; my Scroll of Woe Dates, alas! from Youth's deserted bowers, Twenty golden years ago! Yet my Deutschland's bardlings flourish long! Me, I tweak no beak among them; -- hawks, Must not pounce on hawks; besides, in song I could beat all of them by chalks, Though you find me, as I near my goal, Sentimentalizing like Rousseau, Oh! I had a grand Byronian soul Twenty golden years ago! Tick-tick, tick-tick! -- Not a sound save Time's, And the windgust, as it drives the rain -- Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes, Go to bed, and rest thine aching brain! Sleep! -- no more the dupe of hopes or schemes; Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow -- Curious anticlimax to thy dreams Twenty golden years ago! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD |
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