Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LINGERING LOCK, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LINGERING LOCK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Across the doleful vacancy
Last Line: And have my hair again!
Subject(s): Baldness


Across the doleful vacancy
For many months it lay,
One friendly lock that stayed by me
When the others fell away.
It hid the barren waste behind,
And gave a sense of hair;
It kept me in a youthful mind
As long as it was there.
Sarcastic barbers now and then
Aspired to cut it off;
But I withstood those merry men
And met their fleering scoff.
No impish breeze in all the sky
Would leave it lying flat;
A gallant red-plumed knight was I
Whene'er I raised my hat.
It would not keep its proper place;
With ceaseless enterprise
It straggled down my dismal face
And tickled in my eyes.
It never fooled a single soul
Except the fool I am.
For me, Time's waves that onward roll
It held with hairy dam.
But one by one the hairs grew less
Upon my shining crown,
And aye to fill the emptiness
I parted further down.
The merest wisp I learned to spread
As far as it would go;
It made upon my barren head
A last, pathetic show.
But now, ah, me! I cannot comb
A single gallant hair;
Time sits triumphant on the dome,
My cranium is bare.
The teeter-board of life has turned
Upon its downward sweep;
The hurrying years, so stoutly spurned,
Now drag me to the deep.
Perchance upon the other shore --
Sweet hope of dying men! --
I'll meet that faithful lock once more,
And have my hair again!





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