At Eighty Years
As nothingness draws near
How I can see
Inexorably clear
My vanity.
My sum of worthiness
Always so small,
Dwindles from less to less
To none at all.
As grisly destiny
Claims me at last,
How grievous seem to me
Sins of my past!
How keen a conscience edge
Can come to be!
How pitiless the dredge
Of memory!
Ye proud ones of the earth
Who count your gains,
What cherish you of worth
For all your pains?
E’er death shall slam the door,
Will you, like me,
Face fate and count the score
FUTILITY.





Related poetry:
- Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in […]...
- Eighty Not Out In the gay, gleamy morn I adore to go walking, And oh what sweet people I meet on my way! […]...
- A Dialogue Man. SWEETEST Saviour, if my soul Were but worth the having, Quickly should I then control Any thought of waving. […]...
- To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive […]...
- The Months have ends the Years a knot The Months have ends the Years a knot No Power can untie To stretch a little further A Skein of […]...
- Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, Or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – […]...
- It's coming the postponeless Creature It’s coming the postponeless Creature It gains the Block and now it gains the Door Chooses its latch, from all […]...
- Sonnet XXVII FAire proud now tell me why should faire be proud; Sith all worlds glorie is but drosse vncleane: And in […]...
- Years of the Modern YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d! Your horizon rises-I see it parting away for more august dramas; I […]...
- The Gift I THOUGHT, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace, Cooling your brow as […]...
- Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States 1 SUDDENLY, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it le’pt forth, half startled […]...
- Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, […]...
- Two Children Give me your hand, oh little one! Like children be we two; Yet I am old, my day is done […]...
- Belated Bard The songs I made from joy of earth In wanton wandering, Are rapturous with Maytime mirth And ectasy of Spring. […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play […]...
- Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery so […]...
- Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so […]...
- Sonnet II When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so […]...
- The Years To-night I close my eyes and see A strange procession passing me The years before I saw your face Go […]...
- From My Last Years FROM my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath, Scatter’d and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the West, Through […]...
- After Years Today, from a distance, I saw you Walking away, and without a sound The glittering face of a glacier Slid […]...
- Years Years, many parti-colour’d years, Some have crept on, and some have flown Since first before me fell those tears I […]...
- Carlovingian Dreams COUNT these reminiscences like money. The Greeks had their picnics under another name. The Romans wore glad rags and told […]...
- Two Years Later Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn’d? Or warned you how despairing The moths are […]...
- I Will Not Fight I will not fight: though proud of pith I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my […]...
- I Years had been from Home I Years had been from Home And now before the Door I dared not enter, lest a Face I never […]...
- As the Ruin Falls All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am […]...
- The Sunset Years of Samuel Shy Master I may be, But not of my fate. Now come the kisses, too many too late. Tell me, O […]...
- Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If […]...
- To My Own Minature Picture Taken At Two Years Of Age And I was once like this! that glowing cheek Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes, that brow Smooth as the level […]...
- Twenty Years Hence Twenty years hence my eyes may grow If not quite dim, yet rather so, Still yours from others they shall […]...
- I could not prove the Years had feet I could not prove the Years had feet Yet confident they run Am I, from symptoms that are past And […]...
- Men Of The High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; Islands of opal float on silver seas; Swift splendors kindle, […]...
- Quicksand Years QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither, Your schemes, politics, fail-lines give way-substances mock and elude me; Only […]...
- There is a Zone whose even Years There is a Zone whose even Years No Solstice interrupt Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon Whose perfect Seasons wait Whose […]...
- Now When The Number Of My Years NOW when the number of my years Is all fulfilled, and I From sedentary life Shall rouse me up to […]...
- Since Years Ago For Evermore SINCE years ago for evermore My cedar ship I drew to shore; And to the road and riverbed And the […]...
- The harm of Years is on him The harm of Years is on him The infamy of Time Depose him like a Fashion And give Dominion room. […]...
- The Pile of Years is not so high The Pile of Years is not so high As when you came before But it is rising every Day From […]...