Old Age and Death

From “Verses upon His Divine Poesy” THE SEAS are quiet when the winds give o’er; So calm are we when passions are no more. For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries. The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Collection: 
English
1626
Edmund Waller
Sub Title: 
Poems of Sentiment: II. Life

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