Words, for alas my trade is words, a barren burst of rhyme,
Rubbed by a hundred rhymesters, battered a thousand times,
Take them, you, that smile on strings, those nobler sounds
than mine,
The words that never lie, or brag, or flatter, or malign.
I give a hand to my lady, another to my friend,
To whom you too have given a hand; and so before the end
We four may pray, for all the years, whatever suns beset,
The sole two prayers worth praying—to live and not forget.
The pale leaf falls in pallor, but the green leaf turns to
gold;
We that have found it good to be young shall find it good to
be old;
Life that bringeth the marriage bell, the cradle and the
grave,
Life that is mean to the mean of heart, and only brave to
the brave.
In the calm of the last white winter, when all the past is
ours,
Old tears are frozen as jewels, old storms frosted as
flowers.
Dear Lady, may we meet again, stand up again, we four,
Beneath the burden of the years, and praise the earth once
more.