AGE
I THINK that I am old. Silent I am with sorrow
At the beauteous sky that holds the new morrow.
I think that I am old. The lark sings words to me,
Who erst sung but Music. And in the ancient sea,
I can see old colours that I have seen elsewhere....
Purple orchids hurt me: and everything that’s fair—
Buttercups and distance and smoke, and people’s bodies.
O, I cannot get away from the places where my God is.
Laughter is a thing to strain and angle for,
My heart is quick and shrinking and pains me at its core.
I am older, older, than the Earth—O, I am old.
If I should be older, colder, than the stars, far off and cold?...
Once I danced and sang and capered on the grass
At the cool close of day, when shadows creep and pass.
When shadows link, and lengthen, and slowly become—nought.
Light flies, and shadow dies without its sustenance.
And stars shine out most silently, like jewels quietly wrought.
Not even then I ceased, nor paused upon my dance.
Now, I am struck and smitten with beauty’s poignancy.
Now, I am hurt with wonder, closed in from ecstasy.
No ecstasy is mine. I cannot get away.
Every way I turn—myself. By night, by day,
My face, my soul, my body, the people that I know—
Ah, no more free fashioning of worlds that gleam and go.
* * * * *
I have grown to be my own world, my world with heart and pain
And he that has found himself can be never lost again.
And he that is quite awake cannot dream his dreams again.
E. C. DICKINSON
(NON.-COLL.)