Later Life

THIS life is full of numbness and of balk,
Of haltingness and baffled short-coming,
Of promise unfulfilled, of everything
That is puffed vanity and empty talk :
Its very bud hangs cankered on the stalk,
Its very song-bird trails a broken wing,
Its very Spring is not indeed like Spring,
But sighs like Autumn round an aimless walk.
This Life we live is dead for all its breath ;
Death's self it is set off on pilgrimage,
Travelling with tottering steps the first short stage :
The second stage is one mere desert dust
Where Death sits veiled amid creation's rust:
Unveil thy face, O Death, who art not Death.