Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/340



! on my brow, what straggling silvery hairs Be ye who curl and mingle in the throng Of a more youthful race? Beshrew my heart, Ye have a frosty aspect right severe, And come to babble nonsense of the times That once have been, and of the days that speed With noiseless pinions o'er me—of the grave That hungers for me, and impatiently Awaits my coming. Softly now, fair sirs, Emblems of frail mortality; in sooth, Are ye the fruits of time, or those chance weeds That sorrow's sullen flood hath left to mock The broken heart that it hath desolated, And killed each bud of hope that blossomed there?