She follows me about my House of Life (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!) She has no part in Time's relentless strife She keeps her old simplicity and truth -- And laughs at grim Mortality, This deathless Child that stays with me -- (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!) My House of Life is weather-stained with years -- (O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay.) Its windows are bedimmed with rain of tears, The walls have lost their rose, its thatch is gray. One after one its guests depart, So dull a host is my old heart. (O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay!) For jealous Age, whose face I would forget, Pulls the bright flowers you bring me from my hair And powders it with snow; and yet -- and yet I love your dancing feet and jocund air. I have no taste for caps of lace To tie about my faded face -- I love to wear your flowers in my hair. O Child in Me, leave not my House of Clay Until we pass together through the Door, When lights are out, and Life has gone away And we depart to come again no more. We comrades who have traveled far Will hail the Twilight and the Star, And smiling, pass together through the Door! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS; ON HEARING A SKYLARK SING by GEORGE SANTAYANA IN STATE by BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON REVEL by ABUL HASAN OF SANTA MARIA THE WORLD'S DESIRE by WILLIAM ROSE BENET PSALM 1. BEATUS VIR, QUI NON by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE PSALM 137. 'BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON' by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE AUTUMN MOOD by SELETHA A. BROWN |