Page:The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, 1919.djvu/137

 GROWING OLD

fill a Provence bowl and pledge us deep

The memory of the far ones, and between

The soothing pipes, in heavy-lidded sleep,

Perhaps we'll dream the things that once have been.

'Tis only noon and still too soon to die,

Yet we are growing old, my heart and I.

A hundred books are ready in my head

To open out where Beauty bent a leaf.

What do we want with Beauty? We are wed

Like ancient Proserpine to dismal grief. 131