AN OLD SONG
When you are very old.
—RONSARD TO HIS LADY.
I SET my reed against my lips and blow, From out the sunset and the thick of May, The tune that in my throat has throbbed all day, To you, upon your terrace pacing slow. Listen, it is the sweetest tune I know; In the last light a little longer stay; Soon will I break and fling my reed away, And stripped of song forever from you go. Listen, I pipe you some December sere, The bough without the bloom, noons dark with rain, You old, I dead, the sharp wind at the door. Ah, how these notes will haunt that aging year! The brier will blossom by your walls again; And you grow young, and I alive once more.