Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904. | | | | Poems of Sentiment: II. Life | | Old Age and Death | | Edmund Waller (1606–1687) |
| | From “Verses upon His Divine Poesy”
THE SEAS are quiet when the winds give o’er; | |
| So calm are we when passions are no more. | |
| For then we know how vain it was to boast | |
| Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost. | |
| Clouds of affection from our younger eyes | 5 |
| Conceal that emptiness which age descries. | |
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| The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, | |
| Lets in new light through chinks that time has made: | |
| Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, | |
| As they draw near to their eternal home. | 10 |
| Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, | |
| That stand upon the threshold of the new. | | | | |
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