GROWING OLD.

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GROWING OLD.

WHAT is it to grow old!

Is it to lose the glory of the form,

The lustre of the eye?

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?

Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength

Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay?

Is it to feel each limb

Grow stiffer, every function less exact,

Each nerve more weakly strung?

Yes, this, and more! but not,

Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life

Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset glow,

A golden day's decline!

'Tis not to see the world

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirr'd;

And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!

It is to spend long days

And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured

In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel.
Deep in our hidden heart

Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion-none.

It is last stage of all—

When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.

M. Arnold.

UP-HILL.

DOES the road wind up-hill all the way!
Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day!
From morn till night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek!
Yea, beds for all who come.

Christina Rossetti.

290

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated

Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes

In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,

Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

Who gathers all things mortal

With cold immortal hands;

Her languid lips are sweeter

Than love's who fears to greet her

To men that mix and meet her

From many times and lands.

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE.

She waits for each and other,

She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her, and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half-regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

291