Growing Old
What is it to grow old
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath
What is it to grow old
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath
In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
The Master stood upon the mount, and taught
He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes; ‘The old law’, they said, ‘is wholly come to naught
Behold the new world rise
’ ‘Was it’, the Lord then said, ‘with scorn ye saw The old law observed ...
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
Yes
in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
Hark
ah, the nightingale—The tawny-throated
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst
What triumph
How changed is here each spot man makes or fills
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks— Are ye too cha...
HE
LE Down the Savoy valleys sounding, Echoing round this castle old, 'Mid the distant mountain-chalets Hark
what bell for church is toll'd
In the bright October morning Savoy's Duke had left his bride
GH the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame
All Etna heaves fiercely Her forest-clothed frame
Not here,
O Apollo
Mist clogs the sunshine
Smoky dwarf
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way