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Poems of Old Age
From Macrocosm...
BETWEEN THE DARKS
Between the darkness and the dark
We dance to descants of the lark.
Between the shadow and the shade
We slip through sunbeams in the glade.
From midnight to a darker night
We long for love and beg for sight.
From darkness life itself arose,
Yet back into the dark it goes.
Each something into nothing flows
Why this should be, who knows? Who knows?
We dance to descants of the lark.
Between the shadow and the shade
We slip through sunbeams in the glade.
From midnight to a darker night
We long for love and beg for sight.
From darkness life itself arose,
Yet back into the dark it goes.
Each something into nothing flows
Why this should be, who knows? Who knows?
...to Microcosm...
HOW LONG, HOW LONG?
How long before the Dark descends,
How long before the night
Beats down the ramparts of the day,
And Light is put to flight?
How long before a faltering fire
My log no longer burns?
How long before my hearth grows cold
And Spring no more returns?
How long shall life and love endure,
How long shall sense abide
Inside this vortex in the void,
This bottle in the tide?
How long before the night
Beats down the ramparts of the day,
And Light is put to flight?
How long before a faltering fire
My log no longer burns?
How long before my hearth grows cold
And Spring no more returns?
How long shall life and love endure,
How long shall sense abide
Inside this vortex in the void,
This bottle in the tide?
THE SWAN SONG OF
J. ALFRED PRUFROCK
So, let us go then, you and I
Where the land’s end meets the sky,
Where our memories of a happier time
May be mured about by pleasant clime,
Where unreason’s rough and reckless hand
Cannot choke right reason’s spring with sand.
Let’s go away, then, you and I
Before the daylight starts to die,
’Ere gods and ghosts take full command,
And darkness veils the path we’ve planned--
While yet we see the way to go
To follow footprints in the snow.
So let us go there—you … and I.
Where the land’s end meets the sky,
Where our memories of a happier time
May be mured about by pleasant clime,
Where unreason’s rough and reckless hand
Cannot choke right reason’s spring with sand.
Let’s go away, then, you and I
Before the daylight starts to die,
’Ere gods and ghosts take full command,
And darkness veils the path we’ve planned--
While yet we see the way to go
To follow footprints in the snow.
So let us go there—you … and I.
IMAGINARY FRIENDS
Imaginary friends besiege our world
And sap with Hatred’s holes frail towers of love.
Stern thunderbolt-commandments they have hurled
From Sinai’s peak and storm-cast skies above
To crush the souls and loose the fears of men,
To bid them think a devil be a dove.
Imaginary friends beyond the ken
Of science slue our minds that we misthink
Our anguish God, make desert oozing fen.
How can such childish daydreams bring to brink
Our lives and force us to forsake life’s flower
In change for deadly draughts of hemlock drink?
Imaginary friends possess more power
Than sinews strapped to muscles red and real.
In darkling shadows dank they crave us cower;
And we forgive all rays of light they steal.
And sap with Hatred’s holes frail towers of love.
Stern thunderbolt-commandments they have hurled
From Sinai’s peak and storm-cast skies above
To crush the souls and loose the fears of men,
To bid them think a devil be a dove.
Imaginary friends beyond the ken
Of science slue our minds that we misthink
Our anguish God, make desert oozing fen.
How can such childish daydreams bring to brink
Our lives and force us to forsake life’s flower
In change for deadly draughts of hemlock drink?
Imaginary friends possess more power
Than sinews strapped to muscles red and real.
In darkling shadows dank they crave us cower;
And we forgive all rays of light they steal.
CICADA SONGS
Cicada songs are warning me
My summer soon shall end,
And all my blossoms, all my bees
Will into dust descend.
Cicada songs are telling me
These colors soon shall fade,
That Autumn sere and Winter white
Will rob my summer’s jade.
Cicada songs are telling me
The conquests I would make
Will go unconquered one more year,
My yearning heart shall ache.
Cicada songs confirm to me
This world of mine is lost--
To follies fired by fevered minds,
To phantoms sired by frost.
Cicada songs now make me think
My earth cannot be saved,
That Time and I again have failed
To free a world enslaved.
Yet cicada songs will sing me on
Through summers yet to come;
Again and yet again shall I
Count up my zero sum.
But cicadas still will sing beyond
My efforts on this earth,
To e’er new blossoms, e’er new bees
Who’ll fill my vacant berth.
And some day some cicada’s song
Will fill a world of reason,
When superstition shall no more
Make Fall so sad a season.
My summer soon shall end,
And all my blossoms, all my bees
Will into dust descend.
Cicada songs are telling me
These colors soon shall fade,
That Autumn sere and Winter white
Will rob my summer’s jade.
Cicada songs are telling me
The conquests I would make
Will go unconquered one more year,
My yearning heart shall ache.
Cicada songs confirm to me
This world of mine is lost--
To follies fired by fevered minds,
To phantoms sired by frost.
Cicada songs now make me think
My earth cannot be saved,
That Time and I again have failed
To free a world enslaved.
Yet cicada songs will sing me on
Through summers yet to come;
Again and yet again shall I
Count up my zero sum.
But cicadas still will sing beyond
My efforts on this earth,
To e’er new blossoms, e’er new bees
Who’ll fill my vacant berth.
And some day some cicada’s song
Will fill a world of reason,
When superstition shall no more
Make Fall so sad a season.
REMINDERS
There are moments when I wake from sleep
But cannot bound from bed,
And I know, I know.
There are moments when I think
To climb the stairs
But then I don’t,
And I know, I know.
There are moments
When my lust is slaked
Before I feel the surge,
And I know, I know.
There are moments when the dawn
Seems slow to light
And the night seems ne’er to end
And I know, I know … I know.
There are moments when I part my eyes
But light is slow to lume
And I know.
But cannot bound from bed,
And I know, I know.
There are moments when I think
To climb the stairs
But then I don’t,
And I know, I know.
There are moments
When my lust is slaked
Before I feel the surge,
And I know, I know.
There are moments when the dawn
Seems slow to light
And the night seems ne’er to end
And I know, I know … I know.
There are moments when I part my eyes
But light is slow to lume
And I know.