Promise Of Peace by Robinson Jeffers
The heads of strong old age are beautiful Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet, Integrity, health, soundness, to the full They've dealt with life and been tempered by it. A young man must not sleep; his years are war, Civil and foreign but the former's worse; But the old can breathe in safety now that they are Forgetting what youth meant, the being perverse, Running the fool's gauntlet and being cut By the whips of the five senses. As for me, If I should wish to live long it were but To trade those fevers for tranquillity, Thinking though that's entire and sweet in the grave How shall the dead taste the deep treasure they have?
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