An Old Man (1897)
Inside the noisy cafe‚ sits
an old man, hunched over a table,
a newspaper in front of him, alone.
And in the miserable scorn of age
he thinks how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength and eloquence and beauty.
He knows how much he's aged; he feels it, sees it.
Though it seems like yesterday that he was
young. So brief a space, so brief a space.
He thinks how Caution cozened him,
and how he always trusted her - how mad!
that fraud who said: "Tomorrow. You have lots of time."
And he remembers passions curbed, and how much
joy he sacrificed. Now each lost chance
derides his foolish prudence.
.... But so much thinking and remembering
has made the old man dizzy, and he dozes off
there in the cafe‚, leaning on the table.
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