GROWING OLD. 287 GROWING OLD. WHAT is it to grow old! Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? 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 weakly strung? Yes, this, and more! but not, Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline! 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young. In the hot prison of the present, month And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Festers the dull remembrance of a change, It is last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost M. Arnold. UP-HILL. DOES the road wind up-hill all the way! Will the day's journey take the whole long day! But is there for the night a resting-place? Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Will there be beds for me and all who seek! Christina Rossetti. 290 THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE. No growth of moor or coppice, Pale, without name or number, Comes out of darkness morn. Though one were strong as seven, In the end it is not well. Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands; Her languid lips are sweeter Than love's who fears to greet her To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands. THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE. She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born; There go the loves that wither, We are not sure of sorrow, Weeps that no loves endure. From too much love of living, That no life lives for ever; Winds somewhere safe to sea. 291 |