COME in, old Ghost of all that used to be! -
You find me old,
And love grown cold,
And fortune fled to younger company:
Departed, as the glory of the day,
With friends! - And you, it seems, have come to stay.-
'T is time to pray.
Come; sit with me, here at Life's creaking door,
All comfortless.-
Think, nay! then, guess,
What was the one thing, eh? that made me poor? -
The love of beauty, that I could not bind?
My dream of truth? or faith in humankind? -
But, never mind!
All are departed now, with love and youth,
Whose stay was brief;
And left but grief
And gray regret - two jades, who tell the truth; -
Whose children - memories of things to be,
And things that failed,- within my heart, ah me!
Cry constantly.
None can turn time back, and no man delay
Death when he knocks.-
What good are clocks,
Or human hearts, to stay for us that day
When at Life's creaking door we see his smile,-
Death's! at the door of this old House of Trial? -
Old Ghost, let's wait awhile.