The Lament of Age

 

Why must I dig this mine still,

Deep in the dark, the damp, and cold,

Just for a speck or two outdoled!

It is my youth gave little toil

To find its top yield nugget gold.

 

My precious yields they came and went,

My mine worked out in every run:

I hear the young ones making fun,

Who must, alas! Grow old and spent,

And lose their gold as I have done.

 

The top is rich enough for youth,

Who needs must dig as he grows old-

Deep in the dark, the damp, and cold;

Until he learns the woful truth-

The more he digs the less his gold.

 

O shafts and beams that propped upright

This mine for eighty years and more-

For I can count my years four score-

Now that my lamp gives feeble light,

Fall, that the earth may close me o'er!