Where is the bewildered chorus
The crickets used to sing?
Where is the eye of Arcturus high
That ushered in the spring?
And where is the throb in a robin’s throat
That boasted of his love?
These things live still for him who will
Give lethargy a shove.
But they are not spontaneous,
And pleasure not itself?
They but exist as a whirling mist
On a just-beyond-reach shelf?
Unless we take ourselves in hand
And shake the cobwebs from us,
We give old age another page
To let it overcome us.
by Ray Romine Friday, September 17, 1948
