Come in, old Ghost of all that used to be!
You find me old,
And love grown cold,
And fortune fled to younger company:
Departed, as the glory of the day,
With friends! And you, it seems, have come to stay.
'T is time to pray.
Come; sit with me, here at Life's creaking door,
All comfortless.
Think, nay! then, guess,
What was the one thing, eh? that made me poor?
The love of beauty, that I could not bind?
My dream of truth? or faith in humankind?
But, never mind!
All are departed now, with love and youth,
Whose stay was brief;
And left but grief
And gray regret two jades, who tell the truth;
Whose children memories of things to be,
And things that failed, within my heart, ah me!
Cry constantly.
None can turn time back, a...