AGE

This ugly old crone —

Every beauty she had

When a maid, when a maid.

Her beautiful eyes,

Too youthful, too wise,

Seemed ever to come

To so lightless a home,

Cold and dull as a stone.

And her cheeks — who would guess

Cheeks cadaverous as this

Once with colours were gay

As the flower on its spray?

Who would ever believe

Aught could bring one to grieve

So much as to make

Lips bent for love's sake

So thin and so grey?

O Youth, come away!

As she asks in her lone,

This old, desolate crone.

She loves us no more;

She is too old to care

For the charms that of yore

Made her body so fair.

Past repining, past care,

She lives but to bear

One or two fleeting years

Earth's indifference: her tears

Have lost now their heat;

Her hands and her feet

Now shake but to be

Shed as leaves from a tree;

And her poor heart beats on

Like a sea — the storm gone.