THE LEGION OF SORROW
I SOUGHT no losing cause, but one I found Mere common ground, yet wider than this world, For all that dwell in it are known to God Though little else, because they have no voice ; And only losers can extol or map
The unpromised land of broken heart's desire.
This is the song of pity and regret For all who lose the cause of being, all To whom the passage of the years denies The lyrics in the tragedy of man.
I sing Of age that once itself was youth, And now must lose the youth that it begot.
I sing of age for I am one with it For all the limbs' refusal to grow old, For all the losing valiance of the heart That beats the dim resurgence of old griefs And memories sad because they hardly hurt. We know our minds at last, and are not glad.
I sing of age to whom the wine, the rose Can say no more, to whom the nightingale Its silver sorrow somewhere in the woods No longer trodden, as when once the moon Could never rise too late. Now blinds debar Her and the bright disturbance of the dawn.
Love is the runner that hands on his torch Forward not back ; and we would have it so. In dwindling light age lives as best it can. Its children make not bearable but sweet The cares that come by day, and haunt by night, And have one name for both: the waking hours.
Age has this consolation, only one However manifold, not in itself
— For there was none—but in the temples built Of its own flesh, and in the tended flame Of selflessness and sacrifice. Even this The hardened savage has extinguished—twice.
Now more than cares, the growing pains of eld, Come gnawing back without relief. The day Has grown more hours. Incarnate devilry Once more has broken the bodies of the young — Satan's communion—and the broken hearts Cannot forget. They will not have the time. VaNstrrim
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