Arthur L. Phelps. An Old Man's Weariness. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

An Old Man’s Weariness

By Arthur L. Phelps


I WANT to lie alone beside the sedges,
Where the dim-faced waters are quietly singing.
There is peace there, and a deep old happiness
That the drake knows when he is tired of winging
The far heights, and avoiding	5
The craft of the grey hunter.

I have long avoided the grey hunter Death,
And now I am weary and in much need of learning
What still peace is. I need the voice of the sedges
That knows not any of the old earth yearning	10
And its cry, but is quiet,
Like the air and the water.