Classic Poem

I did not meet him in the gleaming years
That made the great friendships and the earlier fame,
The carnival time when wine was common as tears,
The fabulous dawn was darkened before I came.
The Carmel woods because he had wandered there
Were yet misted with gold when he returned.
The iron season had come, the iron was gray in his hair,
Yet in his heart the child and the song burned.
Who could have known he drew so near his November,
The power and the song not wearying; and now he is gone.
The Carmel woods are full of music to remember,
And my ears of a sad music; and mine to go on
To not so shining and not so swift an end,
Never to find nor lose so generous a friend.