Poem by Arthur William Symons

Old Age

It may be, when this city of the nine gates
Is broken down by ruinous old age,
And no one upon any pilgrimage
Comes knocking, no one for an audience waits,
And no bright foraging troop of bandit moods
Rides out on the brave folly of any guest,
But weariness, the restless shadow of rest,
Hoveringly upon the city broods;
It may be, then, that those remembering
And sleepless watchers on the crumbling towers
Shall lose the count of the disastrous hours
Which God may have grown tired of reckoning. 

1. Pastel: Masks and Faces
2. Grey Hours: Naples
3. At Glan-y-Wern
4. Behind the Scenes: Empire
5. The Andante of Snakes

Edmund Waller Old Age ("The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er")

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