ALONG nerve and sinew doth old-age creep
And it is time for sleep ;
Not the deep dead sleep of forgetting,
The cold and unmeasured clasp of Death,
Rather a sweet and silent dreaming
With an ancient yet a new Spring’s breath ;
What was, but unlike that of days
When Youth was hot and sex and sex
A lure, shimmering and quivering between
One and one – arms, bosoms and necks,
The curves thereof, the suggestions of dress.
Touched the nerve of impulse ; lip to lip.
Soul and soul burnt to unity in the kiss-fire,
Then was the lissomness of Youth let slip.
To bequeath a cold dry quivering,
A shoulder-shrugging, tired-eyed shivering.
Calmness now as of an ancient land
With slow moving and full-bosomed streams,
Reclining ‘neath another sun, a later moon
Than those that lit your quietly folded dreams ;
Emotion, a crystal that faintly glows
In the fitful gleam of yesterdays
And is only sensed, as the scent of a rose,
Or the curve of a branch that sways,
When Night has put the sun away
And sweet is the afterday.
(Bernard Waters)
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Based on Topics: Death & Dying Poems, Soul Poems, Youth Poems, Emotions PoemsBased on Keywords: sensed, unity, yesterdays, suggestions, old-age, full-bosomed, shoulder-shrugging