The Home Book of Verse Volume I Part 90

Is it to lose the glory of the form, The l.u.s.tre of the eye?

Is it for beauty to forego her wealth?

--Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength-- Not our bloom only, but our strength--decay?

Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung?

Yes, this, and more; but not-- Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!

'Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline.

'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.

Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion--none.

It is!--last stage of all-- When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blessed the living man.

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

PAST

The clocks are chiming in my heart Their cobweb chime; Old murmurings of days that die, The sob of things a-drifting by.

The clocks are chiming in my heart!

The stars have twinkled, and gone out-- Fair candles blown!

The hot desires burn low, and wan Those ashy fires, that flamed anon.

The stars have twinkled, and gone out!

John Galsworthy [1867-1933]

TWILIGHT

When I was young the twilight seemed too long.

How often on the western window-seat I leaned my book against the misty pane And spelled the last enchanting lines again, The while my mother hummed an ancient song, Or sighed a little and said: "The hour is sweet!"

When I, rebellious, clamored for the light.

But now I love the soft approach of night, And now with folded hands I sit and dream While all too fleet the hours of twilight seem; And thus I know that I am growing old.

O granaries of Age! O manifold And royal harvest of the common years!

There are in all thy treasure-house no ways But lead by soft descent and gradual slope To memories more exquisite than hope.

Thine is the Iris born of olden tears, And thrice more happy are the happy days That live divinely in the lingering rays.

A. Mary F. Robinson [1857-

YOUTH AND AGE

Youth hath many charms,-- Hath many joys, and much delight; Even its doubts, and vague alarms, By contrast make it bright: And yet--and yet--forsooth, I love Age as well as Youth!

Well, since I love them both, The good of both I will combine,-- In women, I will look for Youth, And look for Age, in wine: And then--and then--I'll bless This twain that gives me happiness!

George Arnold [1834-1865]

FORTY YEARS ON

Forty years on, when afar and asunder Parted are those who are singing today, When you look back, and forgetfully wonder What you were like in your work and your play; Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song-- Visions of boyhood shall float them before you, Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along.

Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!

Till the field ring again and again, With the tramp of the twenty-two men, Follow up! Follow up!

Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies, Bases attempted, and rescued, and won, Strife without anger, and art without malice,-- How will it seem to you forty years on?

Then, you will say, not a feverish minute Strained the weak heart, and the wavering knee, Never the battle raged hottest, but in it Neither the last nor the faintest were we!

Follow up! Follow up!

O the great days, in the distance enchanted, Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun, How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted-- Hardly believable forty years on!

How we discoursed of them, one with another, Auguring triumph, or balancing fate, Loved the ally with the heart of a brother, Hated the foe with a playing at hate!

Follow up! Follow up!

Forty years on, growing older and older, Shorter in wind, and in memory long, Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder, What will it help you that once you were strong?

G.o.d gives us bases to guard or beleaguer, Games to play out, whether earnest or fun, Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager, Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

Follow up! Follow up!

Edward Ernest Bowen [1836-1901]

DREGS

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof, (This is the end of every song man sings!) The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain, Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain; And health and hope have gone the way of love Into the drear oblivion of lost things.

Ghosts go along with us until the end; This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.

With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait For the dropped curtain and the closing gate: This is the end of all the songs man sings.

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]