Читать книгу The Cup of Comus: Fact and Fancy - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 10

Come in, old Ghost of all that used to be! —

You find me old,

And love grown cold,

And fortune fled to younger company:

Departed, as the glory of the day,

With friends! – And you, it seems, have come to stay. —

'T is time to pray.

Come; sit with me, here at Life's creaking door,

All comfortless. —

Think, nay! then, guess,

What was the one thing, eh? that made me poor? —

The love of beauty, that I could not bind?

My dream of truth? or faith in humankind? —

But, never mind!

All are departed now, with love and youth,

Whose stay was brief;

And left but grief

And gray regret – two jades, who tell the truth; —

Whose children – memories of things to be,

And things that failed, – within my heart, ah me!

Cry constantly.

None can turn time back, and no man delay

Death when he knocks, —

What good are clocks,

Or human hearts, to stay for us that day

When at Life's creaking door we see his smile, —

Death's! at the door of this old House of Trial? —

Old Ghost, let's wait awhile.