But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds, knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough
And pressed at midnighht in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.
You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.
You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?
Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;
I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns.
The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves The brilliant moon and all the milky sky And all that famous harmony of leaves Had blotted out man's image and his cry.
I knew that I had seen, had seen at last
That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly
If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meat
A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat.
...How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face... "When You Are Old And Gray