A Child of the People :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sweet, we grow old, grow old!
We have learned what living is,
Heaping dead friends with mould.
Dying,—what will it be?
Time some day will teach this,
Alas, to you and me.

We are not getting grey;
Men would say we were young;
But the heart hath a woeful way
Of ageing before its prime.
Or ever our noon has rung,
We have somehow passed our prime.

You remember our talk last night?
I would believe, if I dare,
That our souls shall come to a light
Beyond the sorrowful years,
And finish our converse there,
And laugh at our old-world fears;

But I cannot. For, given we rise,
I find in this Christian creed
An end of all earthly ties
And friendships,—a separation
Of lover and loved,—no need
Of any human relation.

Believe it or not as you can;
But I cannot endure the thought
That the bonds between me and a man,
Whose very souls are as one,
Shall be utterly brought to nought,
Unriveted and undone.

So I challenge the creed which is all,
For the revelation given
Of what shall hereafter fall
In its Paradise which is part.
I care not for such a heaven,
Who have still a human heart.

But this riddle of what shall be,
And the doubt and the nearing gloom,
And the world, on a writhing knee,
Godward pealing its prayers
To tear the veil from the tomb,
When no God calls nor cares,

Make me grow old, grow old,
And sadden while life is glad
To others with glint of gold,
Wine-cups or a woman's breath:
And where most are the whirlpools mad,
I shall drift in the dark on death.