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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A MINUET ON REACHING THE AGE OF FIFTY, by GEORGE SANTAYANA Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Old age, on tiptoe, lays her jewelled hand Last Line: And close our eyes, still smiling, on the dance. Subject(s): Aging; Middle Age | |||
Old Age, on tiptoe, lays her jewelled hand Lightly in mine. Come, tread a stately measure, Most gracious partner, nobly posed and bland. Ours be no boisterous pleasure, But smiling conversation, with quick glance And memories dancing lightlier than we dance, Friends who a thousand joys Divide and double, save one joy supreme Which many a pang alloys. Let wanton girls and boys Cry over lovers' woes and broken toys. Our waking life is sweeter than their dream. Dame Nature, with unwitting hand, Has sparsely strewn the black abyss with lights Minute, remote, and numberless. We stand Measuring far depths and heights, Arched over by a laughing heaven, Intangible and never to be scaled. If we confess our sins, they are forgiven. We triumph, if we know we failed. Tears that in youth you shed, Congealed to pearls, now deck your silvery hair; Sighs breathed for loves long dead Frosted the glittering atoms of the air Into the veils you wear Round your soft bosom and most queenly head; The shimmer of your gown Catches all tints of autumn, and the dew Of gardens where the damask roses blew; The myriad tapers from these arches hung Play on your diamonded crown; And stars, whose light angelical caressed Your virgin days, Give back in your calm eyes their holier rays The deep past living in your breast Heaves these half-merry sighs; And the soft accents of your tongue Breathe unrecorded charities. Hasten not; the feast will wait. This is a master-night, without a morrow. No chill and haggard dawn, with after-sorrow, Will snuff the splattering candle out, Or blanch the revellers homeward straggling late Before the rout Wearies or wanes, will come a calmer trance. Lulled by the poppied fragrance of this bower, We'll cheat the lapsing hour, And close our eyes, still smiling, on the dance. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WAKING THE MORNING DREAMLESS AFTER LONG SLEEP by JANE HIRSHFIELD PERISHABLE, IT SAID by JANE HIRSHFIELD QUICKLY AGING HERE by DENIS JOHNSON TWENTY QUESTIONS by DAVID LEHMAN EAST OF CARTHAGE: AN IDYLL by KHALED MATTAWA FIVE ACCOUNTS OF A MONOGAMOUS MAN by WILLIAM MEREDITH TWO SONGS OF PEACE: 2 by YEHUDA AMICHAI |
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