There shall be a song for both of us that day
Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,
You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,
And no men kiss your hands—your fragile hands
Folded like empty shells on sea-spurned sands.
And you that were dawn whereat men shouted once
Are sunset now, with but one worshipper,
Then to your twilight heart this song shall be
Sweeter than those that did your youth announce
For your brave beautiful spirit is lovelier
Than once your lovely body was to me.
Your folded hands and your shut eyelids stir
A passion that Time has crowned with sanctity.
Young fools shall wonder why, your youth being over,
You are so sung still, but your heart will know
That he who loved your soul was your true lover
And the last song alone was worthy you.
You are no longer young,
Nor are you very old.
There are homes where those belong.
You know you do not fit
When you observe the cold
Stares of those who sit
In bath-chairs or the park
(A stick, then, at their side)
Or find yourself in the dark
And see the lovers who,
In love and in their stride,
Don’t even notice you.
This is a time to begin
Your life. It could be new.
The sheer not fitting in
With the old who envy you
And the young who want to win,
Not knowing false from true,
Means you have liberty
Denied to their extremes.
At last now you can be
What the old cannot recall
And the young long for in dreams,
Yet still include them all.
The thousand hairline cracks in an aged face
match the hairline cracks in an aged cup
and come from similar insults: careless, base
self-absorbed gestures from a younger face,
cruel and fine. Bang! Each disturbed trace
deepens to a visible crack. A break-up,
a mix-up, a wild mistake: these show in a face
like the hairline cracks in an ancient cup.
Neither wholly broken nor all used up
the cup becomes a visage, unstable.
One never knows what will crack it open
and finish it. Banged too hard on a table?
Yet happiness might crack a face open
in a better way: hairline tracery as laugh lines
releasing the joys of ancient thoughts
cupped into use, and suddenly able.
When you are old and grey 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.
As a white candle
In a holy place,
So is the beauty
Of an aged face.
As the spent radience
Of the winter sun,
So is a woman
With her travail done.
Her brood gone from her,
And her thoughts as still
As the waters
Under a ruined mill.
CC's Poetry Page 