Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. A SONG OF ONE IN OLD AGE, by EDWARD CARPENTER Poet's Biography First Line: Weary and broken, old age, art thou now come upon me? Last Line: Only perpetual joy. Subject(s): Old Age; Weariness; Fatigue | ||||||||
WEARY and broken, old age, art thou now come upon me? My faculties drying up like pools of water in summer, My body dying, my brain rusting, my heart-beat dull and torpid Falling off like a dead leaf from the tree, unheeded, useless Is this old age then? lonely, ah! how lonely! The world hurries by so light and glad and joyouseach man following his call: but I without any; The spring returns with the budding leaves on the beech so fresh, and the virgin grass, and the foals and young calves in the fields: as it has returned so oft before; but I am old and must diethere is no place for me any longer; At night in dreams the faces return to methe faces that I loved, ah! dearest faces!but when I wake the world is changed, all changed: there is no place for them any longer, but strangers are around me. How should love come to mewhat is there that any one should seek me? Who will pause for the empty husk of a man, and shall I be a supplicant for pity? How could I ever have guessed when I was young that this would come upon meand yet it has come upon me, as it has come upon so many millions before? To diethat is it. This at last is what I have so often counted onto die, to be effaced, to be made of no accountand now it is forced upon me whether I will or no. O Death, I shall conquer thee yet. Didst thou think to terrify me?but lo! was I not dead before thou camest? Long long years ago did I not abandon this frail tenement, all but in name?was not my last furniture packed up and ready to be transported? The virgin grass received me, and the beech trees so ten derly green in spring, and the bodies of my lovers that I loved: They became my dwelling, and I forgot that I existed. I passed freely and floated on the ocean of which before I had only been part of the shore, I took up my refuge beyond the limits where thou couldst come. Yet now once more confined, Here in this prison cell while the walls grow thickerof all I was a little spark waits yet its liberation. Come quickly, Death, and loose this last remainder of meshatter the walls, Break down this body of mine, and let me go. Or else, In patience let me wait seeing fulfilled That which I sought so longto be effaced. Hidden I waitthis old husk suits me wellfor who will guess the likeness of me through it? This is my invisible cap wherein I'll ramble yet through many byways of sweet human life. And thou too, stranger, shalt pity me if thou wilt, and I will accept thy pity gratefully Yet after all perhaps the best gift of the two I'll give to thee. Old age, old age?No! only there outside. Here where I am 'tis everlasting youth. This is where the virgin grass springs from, I see, and the loves that clothe the frame of humanity, Out of this old shell passing I begin againthere is no death here, there can be no death, Only perpetual joy. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VALUE IN MOUNTAINS: 10 by KENNETH REXROTH IMPERIAL NOSTALGIAS: 4 by CESAR VALLEJO BLACK SHEEP by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON TIRED TIM by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE WEARINESS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW NEURASTENIA by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON MICHAEL ANGELO by AUGUSTE BARBIER AS A MOULD FOR SOME FAIR FORM by EDWARD CARPENTER |
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