POEMS ABOUT AGE

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Death, tho’ I see him not, is near
And grudges me my eightieth year.
Now, I would give him all these last
For one that fifty have run past.
Ah! he strikes all things, all alike,
But bargains: those he will not strike.

It is time to be old,
To take in sail:--
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: 'No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There's not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while
Still plan and smile,
And,--fault of novel germs,--
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,
Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,--
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.'

As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
'Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.'

She wasn't born. The molecules collided she tells them. How she got here. She doesn't know. Except that god isn't to blame.

Anchors released. Apes on the verge of clothes. She's old. The smell of grandma. Mothballs and stray cats. Waiting without an alarm. To wake up. Dying is easy. She watches. Certain they are the fortunate ones.

It was pretty she said. As the moon smothered the sun. I can't see it, but I imagine that's how the world began. Blind and without knowing where it would end. I had my shoes in the doorway. Full of rain. And grass. Like I had been places.

I had been practicing. Knowing what it was like. To be a man. Soiling the atom. Waiting for the tears.

To concede her.

The life falling from her fists in beads of sweat. A tentative hold on nothing in particular. A sealed box. Containing some poison and a subject. Theoretically both alive and dead.

Just like everyone always is.

When I am old and drenched in worlds of sadness,
And wear a lacy cap upon my head;
When, looking past the future's singing gladness,
I linger, wistful, in the years long dead.
When I am old, and young folk all about me,
Speak softly of religion, when they speak,
When parties are a grand success without me;
And when my laugh is fluttering and weak--

Will I then be content to raise my glances,
Serenely to the cloud-entangled sky?
And will I be content to watch at dances,
Without a heartbreak, as the hours pass by?
Or when I see young lovers fingers twine,
Will I remember, dear, your lips on mine?

The women tell me every day
That all my bloom has past away.
"Behold," the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And, like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,
I'm sure I neither know nor care;
But this I know, and this I feel,
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give!

When I see the young men play,
Young methinks I am as they;
And my aged thoughts laid by,
To the dance with joy I fly:
Come, a flowery chaplet lend me;
Youth and mirthful thoughts attend me:
Age be gone, we'll dance among
Those that young are, and be young:
Bring some wine, boy, fill about;
You shall see the old man's stout;
Who can laugh and tipple too,
And be mad as well as you.

The park bench's were filled
with all the local old men.
They sat and pondered and relived
forgotten dreams once again.
In faded trousers and plaid
shirts they came,
tired and worn,
common in their fame,
each one the others only
remaining friend.
Life starts out as a newborn baby
and slowly becomes old men.

She wasn't born. The molecules collided she tells them. How she got here. She doesn't know. Except that god isn't to blame.

Anchors released. Apes on the verge of clothes. She's old. The smell of grandma. Mothballs and stray cats. Waiting without an alarm. To wake up. Dying is easy. She watches. Certain they are the fortunate ones.

It was pretty she said. As the moon smothered the sun. I can't see it, but I imagine that's how the world began. Blind and without knowing where it would end. I had my shoes in the doorway. Full of rain. And grass. Like I had been places.

I had been practicing. Knowing what it was like. To be a man. Soiling the atom. Waiting for the tears.

To concede her.

The life falling from her fists in beads of sweat. A tentative hold on nothing in particular. A sealed box. Containing some poison and a subject. Theoretically both alive and dead.

Just like everyone always is.