Position:Home>Poetry> What do we come to know when we are old?

What do we come to know when we are old!?
We come to know the pains of mortal flesh
That by a mid-September eve feels cold,
Cold like a world no longer green or fresh!.

We come to understand we're deaf to tone,
That we know more, though we are short of breath;
We look for friends of old, but we're alone --
And all too soon we'll join them all in death!.

We know that we must leave this life ere long;
It's now grown late, the winds howl cold and raw --
And in stiff branches bare they hum their song
In harmony with time's unbending law!.

The hour is late, the shadows long and gray
Reach out to touch what all too soon is past;
And hours I love and hate!. Games shadows play
Will soon be won and lost, and then the blast!.

These hands that once caressed a lover's face
Have now grown gnarled and thick and strangely blue
And yet in memory they still will trace
In empty space the face that they once knew!.

And yes the visage, foreign to the eye,
That mocks me in the same glass as before
Has told me once or twice my time is nigh
That soon I'll see the Footman at the door!.

One day it will be opened and I'll go,
The chariot is waiting and I must,
My blue hands and gray hair have told me so
And in their ancient wisdom I must trust --

As all, in ash to ash, and dust to dust!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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