Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MIDDLE AGE, by JULIA WARD HOWE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MIDDLE AGE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Left alone with the cows to-day
Last Line: All this is the burthen of middle age.
Subject(s): Freedom; Future; Middle Age; Past; Liberty


Left alone with the cows to-day,
The younger members all gone away;
The trees would go, but their roots are set,
Their patent of freedom not made out yet.
So here I sit, in state serene,
Every one's servant and no one's queen,
Watching the butterflies bright and brown,
That float like leaves from God's autumn crown.

My children are chasing the swift delight
Oft neared, but ne'er o'ertaken quite:
The sweet cup fails from the lips too soon,
The harmony waits for its perfect tune;
In bluest ether some scutcheon dark
Heralds the storm-fiend to the bark;
God's monitors set, if the sense should pall,
To whisper the spirit: "This is not all."

The grave of the Past in my garden lies
For daily and hourly sacrifice.
The Christ life blesses my daily care,
For his is the lesson and his the prayer.
But the endless Future touches me too
In the unseen Babe that, old and new,
Is carried along in the household ways
With its waiting mother, too dear for praise.

I look at the ancient blue on high
That saw the first Parents live and die,
By this very sun which, burning still,
Mirrors God's patient and constant will.
And I look below at the ancient green
Where the life of the aeons has garnered been;
There, standing where others stand between,
I study the lesson of human fate
On the wondrous page, at my narrow date.

And this later freedom, this thoughtful calm
That sobers the strophe and quickens the psalm,
That gathers the blessing and loses the pain,
And counts nought for lost in the final gain,
And the children, born without pangs of mine,
And the dreams that in young eyes dazzle and shine,
And the faith that follows the prophet's soul
Where truth unseen has its distant goal.
Let me end the song ere I turn the page, --
All this is the burthen of middle age.





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