Classic Poem

When the soul ages, let the rivers be
All one with the proud sea;
When spirit lichens let the stars go quite
Out of the body of the light;
When aught can sicken, sere, or can decay
That quick and living seed of beauty's womb
Prepare love's tomb,
And with love's form shut up the thousand springs
Of human joy, those things
By whose transcendent force alone we strive
To nobly live.
Do this when spirit ages. While it breathes
And with its beauty wreathes
Perishing towers, laughing at death's hand
Let heaven stand
Gold on the meadows, and let rivers feed
With pearl the mortal seed.
So said I, looking in the glass to greet
My ageing face, and meet
Death's shadow which made mouths at me behind
The quickness of my mind;
But while age mocked and death still beckoned, I
Knew that my soul is younger than the leaves,
In April are;
Since every moment it is born again,
And comes from far—
From worlds where time has never been begun
And innocence alone
Causes eternal youth to wash the air
With loveliness despair
Has never soiled; thence spirit has its birth,
Thence flies to earth—
And thither goes again, when it has passed
Corruption's ugly, outstretched arms at last.