Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. THE GOLDEN WEDDING, by EDWARD CARPENTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. THE GOLDEN WEDDING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now fifty years through wind and sun and rain
Last Line: We shall perchance awaken.
Subject(s): Anniversaries; Churches; Gold; Hearts; Love; Marriage; Cathedrals; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


NOW fifty years through wind and sun and rain, Through the sweet heyday of
youth, through life's maturity and age,
We've bloomed and withered, dearest, side by side,
Two trees upon one root.

Rememberest thou
How hand in hand schoolwards we ran, we two,
With tiny feet? Yes, we two, is it not strange?
Or later how the merry pealing bells rang us to Church (no music I thought
like them);
Then we reared five children, fell on troublous times, and toiled and
suffered till we tired of life.
And they went one by one, and launched upon the world and sailed away,
Proud, with all canvas set, while we are left,
Old battered wrecks—here in this cottage of the hills—and
wondering
Which the great waves of time will first wash down.

And now dearest one, through all this lapse of years I look into your eyes,

And see them deep as ever;
Their beauty is to me a passion just as ever,
Voiceless, unfathomable, that no time can touch.
If the great gulf should come and swallow me in sheer oblivion—still
it is good to have known thee;
But that thou should'st die,
That thou should'st perish from thyself and cease to be,
I cannot credit. Somewhere nearer God,
When this thick mortal slumber has gone by,
We shall perchance awaken.





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