When You are Old
WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
It sounds depressing - the sad tone, the inevitability of loss, the complete, devastating knowledge of trading in fire that could have lasted through to pilgrim years for comforting, easy love that noted grace and beauty. And worse - of how, now, hiding from the stars, the love lost, is too far gone to get back and love that way again.
But then there is hope. Suddenly, when there should have been none.
There is the "when" - to suggest somewhat that this is not what is : but, instead, a warning of what could be if one were to choose only spectators of beauty and grace, over willing sadness. And the (early?) knowledge that losing that possibility of fire is a larger threat than immediately imaginable.
Unhide?
xx
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