IN the heyday of my years, when I thought the world was young,
And believed that I was old-at the very gates of Life-
It seemed in every song the birds of heaven sung
That I heard the sweet injunction: ” Go and get to thee a wife!”
And within the breast of youth woke a secret sweet desire;
For Love spoke in that carol his first mysterious word,
That to-day through ashen years kindles memory into fire,
Though the birds are dead that sang it, and the heart is old that heard.
I have watched my youth’s blue heavens flush to angry, brooding red,
And again the crimson palsied in a dull unpregnant gloom;
I am older than some sorrows; I have watched by Pleasure dead;
I have seen Hope grow immortal at the threshold of the tomb.
Through the years by turns that gave me now curses, now caresses,
I have fought a fight with Fortune wherein Love hath had no part;
To-day, when peace hard-conquered riper years and weary blesses,
Will my fortieth summer pardon twenty winters to my heart?
When the spring-tide’s verdure darkens to the summer’s deeper glories,
And in the thickening foliage doth the year its life renew,
Will to me the forests whisper once more their wind-learnt stories?
Will the birds their message bring, me from out the heaven of blue?
Will the wakened world for me sing the old enchanted song-
Touch the underfiow of love that, through all the toil and strife,
Has only grown the stronger as the years passed lone and long?
Shall I learn the will of Heaven is to get for me a wife?
The boy’s heart yearns for freedom, he walks hand-in-hand with pleasure;
Made bright with wine and kisses he sees the face of Life;
He would make the world a pleasance for a love that knows not measure;
But the man seeks Heaven, and finds it in the bosom of his wife.
(Henry Cuyler Bunner)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Sadness Poems, Faces Poems, Youth Poems, Heaven Poems, Fire Poems, Birds Poems, Summer PoemsBased on Keywords: heyday, fortieth, injunction, old-at