Classic Poem

I the old woman of Beare
Once a shining shift would wear,
Now and since my beauty's fall
I have scarce a shift at all.

Plump no more, I sigh for these
Bones bare beyond belief;
Ebbtide is all my grief,
I am ebbing like the seas.

It is pay
And not men ye love today,
But when we were young, ah then
We gave all our hearts to men.

Men most dear,
Horseman, huntsman, charioteer;
We gave them love with all our will
But the measure did not fill.

When today they ask so fine,
And small good they get of it,
They are wornout in their prime
By the little that they get.

And long since the foaming steed
And the chariot with its speed
And the charioteer went by —
God be with them all, say.

Luck has left me, I go late
To the dark house where they wait;
When the Son of God thinks fit
Let Him call me home to it.

For my hands as you may see
Are but bony wasted things,
Hands that once would grasp the hand,
Clasp the haughty neck of kings.

O my hands as may be seen
Are so scraggy and so thin
That a boy might start in dread
Feeling them about his head.

Girls are gay
When the year draws on to May,
But for me, so poor am I,
Sun will scarcely light the day.

Though I care
Nothing now to deck my hair,
I had headgear bright enough
When the kings for love went bare.

'Tis not age that makes my pain
But the eye that sees so plain
How when all it loves decays,
Femon's ways are gold again.

Femon, Bregon, sacring stone,
Sacring stone and Ronan's throne,
Storms have sacked so long that now
Tomb and sacring stone are one.

Winter overwhelms the land,
The waves are noisy on the strand,
So I may not hope today
Faramuid will come my way.

Where are they? Ah, well I know
Old and toiling bones that row
Alma's flood or by its deep
Sleep in cold that slept not so.

Welladay!
Every child outlives its play,
Year on year has worn my flesh
Since my fresh sweet strength went grey.

And, O God,
Once again for ill or good
Spring will come and I shall see
Everything but me renewed.

Summer sun and autumn sun,
These I knew and they are gone,
And the winter time of men
Comes and they come not again.

And " Amen " I cry and " Woe! "
That the boughs are shaken bare
And that candlelight and feast
Leave me to the dark and prayer.

I that had my day with kings
And drank deep of mead and wine,
Drink whey-water with old hags
Sitting in their rags and pine.

" That my cups be cups of whey!
That Thy will be done, " I pray,
But the prayer, O Living God,
Stirs up madness in my blood.

And I cry " Your locks are grey "
At the mantle that I stroke,
Then I grieve and murmur " Nay,
I am grey and not my cloak. "

And of eyes that loved the sun
Age, my grief, has taken one,
And the other too will take
Soon for good proportion's sake.

Floodtide!
Flood or ebb upon the strand?
What floodtide brings to you,
Ebbtide carries from your hand.

Floodtide
And the swifter tides that fall,
All have reached me, ebb and flow,
Ay, and now I know them all.

Floodtide!
Not a man answers my call
Nor in darkness seeks my side,
A cold hand lies on them all.

Happy island of the main,
To you the tide will come again,
But to me it comes no more
Over the blank deserted shore.

Seeing it, I can scarcely say
" Here is such a place " today,
What was water far and wide
Changes with the ebbing tide.