I had my day with kings
Drinking mead and wine:
To-day I drink whey-water
Among shrivelled old hags.
I see upon my cloak the hair of old age,
My reason has beguiled me:
Grey is the hair that grows through my skin—
'Tis thus I am an old hag.
The flood-wave
And the second ebb-tide—
They have all reached me,
So that I know them well.
The flood-wave
Will not reach the silence of my kitchen:
Though many are my company in darkness,
A hand has been laid upon them all.
O happy the isle of the great sea
Which the flood reaches after the ebb!
As for me, I do not expect
Flood after ebb to come to me.
There is scarce a little place to-day
That I can recognise:
What was on flood
Is all on ebb.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] 'Je tremble à present dedans la canicule.'—Molière, Sganarelle, scène 2.