Songs of the Road — Sexagenarius Loquitur

SEXAGENARIUS LOQUITUR

From our youth to our age We have passed each stage In old immemorial order, From primitive days Through flowery ways With love like a hedge as their border.

Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy, And we were the king and the queen, When I was a year Short of thirty, my dear, And you were just nearing nineteen.

But dark follows light And day follows night As the old planet circles the sun;

And nature still traces Her score on our faces And tallies the years as they run.

Have they chilled the old warmth in your heart?

I swear that they have not in mine, Though I am a year Short of sixty, my dear, And you are well, say thirty-nine.

NIGHT VOICES