Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, COMMENCEMENT POEM: 10, by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COMMENCEMENT POEM: 10, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Well - well, / why need the hurrying brain to trouble itself?
Last Line: Into the stillness of the unknown land.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew
Subject(s): Commencement


Well -- well,
Why need the hurrying brain to trouble itself?
Threescore years is swiftly worn away --
In some summer when our heads are gray,
We perhaps shall wander back from our power or pelf,
To muse on the days when all these things befell.
Nothing will then be changed:
Calm as of yore through the slumberous summer noon
Will the Old Rock rest in its majesty;
All the paths that we have ranged
Still will wear the glory of their June, --
Nothing changed but we.
The years will bring us, hastening to their goal,
A little more of calmness, and of trust,
With still the old, old doubt of death and dust,
And still the expectancy within the soul.
O Father, as we go to meet the years,
We ask not joy that fame or pleasure brings,
But some calm knowledge of the sum of things --
A hint of glory glimmering over tears;
That he, who walks with sanction from Thy hand,
Some token of its presence may have seen,
Beneath which we may tread the path serene
Into the stillness of the unknown land.





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