Classic Poem

He faced the darkening window as he stood
To say the evening prayer.
And those who moved about him there,
The strangers, who were all his own,
Giving him neither scorn nor care,
Left him the more alone.
His old eyes echoed the dimming skies.
His fingers fluttered, as though he sought
To catch the faded fringes of his thought,
And find a feeble warmth for aching bones
In words of praise,
Like sunset drowning in autumnal haze.
A feeble patriarch in a thin old coat,
Drawing about him like a sacred shawl
The comfort of his ancient ritual.
He stays to mark the close of one more meager day.
Habit as blind and steady as the tide
Masters his muttering lips,
His eyes that brood upon this dusk,
That falls on a new loss and seems familiar
Since it, too, will pass ...
The dark grew bold as the old man,
From his security of solitude,
Turned to the world, and sighed.