Classic Poem

My past has gone to bed. Upstairs in clockless rooms
My past is fast asleep. But mindsight reillumes
Here in my ruminant head the days where dust lies deep.

Sleep-walkers empty-eyed come strangely down the stairs
These are my selves, — once proud, once passionate with young prayers,
Once vehement with vows. I know not when they died,
Those ignorant selves. . . . Meanwhile my self sits brooding here
In the house where I was born. Dwindling, they disappear.
Me they did not foresee. But in their looks I find
Simplicities unlearned long since and left behind.