The heads of strong old age are
Beyond all grace of youth.
They have strange quiet,
Integrity, health, soundness, to the
They've dealt with life and been tempered by it.
A young man must not sleep; his years are war,
Civil and foreign but the former's worse;
But the old can breathe in safety now that they
Forgetting what youth meant, the being perverse,
Running the fool's gauntlet and being
By the whips of the five senses.
As for me,
If I should wish to live long it were
To trade those fevers for tranquillity,
Thinking though that's entire and sweet in the
How shall the dead taste the deep treasure they have?
