Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE AGED LOVER RENOUNCETH LOVE, by THOMAS VAUX Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I loathe that I did love Last Line: So shall ye waste to dust. Alternate Author Name(s): Harrowden, 2d Baron Vaux Of Subject(s): Aging; Love; Old Age | ||||||||
I loathe that I did love, In youth that I thought sweet; As time requires, for my behove, Methinks they are not meet. My lusts they do me leave, My fancies all be fled, And tract of time begins to weave Grey hairs upon my head. For age with stealing steps Hath clawed me with his crutch, And lusty life away she leaps, As there had been none such. My Muse doth not delight Me as she did before; My hand and pen are not in plight, As they have been of yore. For reason me denies This youthly idle rhyme; And day by day to me she cries, "Leave off these toys in time.' The wrinkles in my brow, The furrows in my face, Say, limping age will lodge him now Where youth must give him place. The harbinger of death, To me I see him ride; The cough, the cold, the gasping breath Doth bid me to provide A pickaxe and a spade, And eke a shrouding sheet, A house of clay for to be made For such a guest most meet. Methinks I hear the clerk That knolls the careful knell, And bids me leave my woeful work, Ere nature me compel. My keepers knit the knot That youth did laugh to scorn, Of me that clean shall be forgot, As I had not been born. Thus must I youth give up, Whose badge I long did wear; To them I yield the wanton cup, That better may it bear. Lo, here the bared skull, By whose bald sign I know That stooping age away shall pull That youthful years did sow. For beauty with her band These crooked cares hath wrought, And shipped me into the land From whence I first was brought. And ye that bide behind, Have ye none other trust; As ye of clay were cast by kind, So shall ye waste to dust. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT EIGHTY I CHANGE MY VIEW by DAVID IGNATOW FAWN'S FOSTER-MOTHER by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE DEER LAY DOWN THEIR BONES by ROBINSON JEFFERS OLD BLACK MEN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON A WINTER ODE TO THE OLD MEN OF LUMMUS PARK, / MIAMI, FLORIDA by DONALD JUSTICE AFTER A LINE BY JOHN PEALE BISHOP by DONALD JUSTICE TO HER BODY, AGAINST TIME by ROBERT KELLY SONG FROM A COUNTRY FAIR by LEONIE ADAMS |
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