Sonnets 09: Let You Not Say Of Me When I Am Old by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Let you not say of me when I am old, In pretty worship of my withered hands Forgetting who I am, and how the sands Of such a life as mine run red and gold Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold, Here walketh passionless age!"—for there expands A curious superstition in these lands, And by its leave some weightless tales are told.
In me no lenten wicks watch out the night; I am the booth where Folly holds her fair; Impious no less in ruin than in strength, When I lie crumbled to the earth at length, Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer."
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