Classic Poem

All is passed—all that loomed ahead as evil,
all that loomed ahead as good.
what remains is hidden in time's fold.
Now you pull up the pegs of the tent
of forty years and gather fewer provisions
for the road, fewer hopes, less need
for sleep. But in your wakened heart
one fluttering wing resists chains while
you stifle a long protracted scream.
Whatever is done is over; whatever comes
now will light the lamp of old age.
Whatever is coming blunts the sharpness
of sight, slows the fall of the step,
clouds the eye, but all the while
you resist its arrival.
After this forty year peak, the road slopes
downward steeply. Toward more pain?
The pain to feel nostalgia
even for past misery? And you, the most
anxious of tired men, who seem so
debonair, even haughty, are you laughing
now at things that should bring tears?
Or seem untroubled, in spite of annoyances?
What do we see, meeting you, except the cheerful countenance?
But the greatest tragedy is having to please
when no one pleases you,
when no one praises your virtues or
forgives your faults.

What is past is past. You grappled
life's challenges avoiding caution.
In spite of that war which life wages
against you, it was you who always
welcomed the uninvited.
Did you ever want anything except
the unacceptable? Now you stand perplexed
in the wake of events wondering
what to take, what to leave.
But even if you shielded yourself
from all arrows how could you
have escaped your own? O anguish,
that has no end, O anxiety that cannot
be calmed, the seeds are planted
and it is time to reap.