| THERE is grey in your hair. | |
| Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath | |
| When you are passing; | |
| But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing | |
| Because it was your prayer | 5 |
| Recovered him upon the bed of death. | |
| For your sole sake—that all heart’s ache have known, | |
| And given to others all heart’s ache, | |
| From meagre girlhood’s putting on | |
| Burdensome beauty—for your sole sake | 10 |
| Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom, | |
| So great her portion in that peace you make | |
| By merely walking in a room. | |
| |
| Your beauty can but leave among us | |
| Vague memories, nothing but memories. | 15 |
| A young man when the old men are done talking | |
| Will say to an old man, ‘Tell me of that lady | |
| The poet stubborn with his passion sang us | |
| When age might well have chilled his blood.’ | |
| |
| Vague memories, nothing but memories, | 20 |
| But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed. | |
| The certainty that I shall see that lady | |
| Leaning or standing or walking | |
| In the first loveliness of womanhood, | |
| And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, | 25 |
| Has set me muttering like a fool. | |
| |
| You are more beautiful than any one, | |
| And yet your body had a flaw: | |
| Your small hands were not beautiful, | |
| And I am afraid that you will run | 30 |
| And paddle to the wrist | |
| In that mysterious, always brimming lake | |
| Where those that have obeyed the holy law | |
| Paddle and are perfect; leave unchanged | |
| The hands that I have kissed | 35 |
| For old sake’s sake. | |
| |
| The last stroke of midnight dies. | |
| All day in the one chair | |
| From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged | |
| In rambling talk with an image of air: | 40 |
| Vague memories, nothing but memories. | |
