On Growing Old

BE with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying,
My dog and I are old, too old for roving;
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves. Minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your mountains, nor your downlands, nor your valleys,
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where your young knight the broken squadron rallies;
Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

Beauty, have pity; for the young have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its fruit-time and its flower,
Spring-time of man all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close,
Even the night will blossom as the rose.