Tithonus

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

So when the verdure of his life was shed,

With all the grace of ripened manlihead,

And on his locks, but now so lovable,

Old age like desolating winter fell,

Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn:

Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn

Softly withheld, yet cherished him no less

With pious works of pitying tenderness;

Till when at length with vacant, heedless eyes,

And hoary height bent down none otherwise

Than burdened willows bend beneath their weight

Of snow when winter winds turn temperate, —

So bowed with years — when still he lingered on:

Then to the daughter of Hyperion

This counsel seemed the best: for she, afar

By dove-gray seas under the morning star,

Where, on the wide world’s uttermost extremes,

Her amber-walled, auroral palace gleams,

High in an orient chamber bade prepare

An everlasting couch, and laid him there,

And leaving, closed the shining doors. But he,

Deathless by Jove’s compassionless decree,

Found not, as others find, a dreamless rest.

There wakeful, with half-waking dreams oppressed,

Still in an aural, visionary haze

Float round him vanished forms of happier days;

Still at his side he fancies to behold

The rosy, radiant thing beloved of old;

And oft, as over dewy meads at morn,

Far inland from a sunrise coast is borne

The drowsy, muffled moaning of the sea,

Even so his voice flows on unceasingly, —

Lisping sweet names of passion overblown,

Breaking with dull, persistent undertone

The breathless silence that forever broods

Round those colossal, lustrous solitudes.

Times change. Man’s fortune prospers, or it falls.

Change harbors not in those eternal halls

And tranquil chamber where Tithonus lies.

But through his window there the eastern skies

Fall palely fair to the dim ocean’s end.

There, in blue mist where air and ocean blend,

The lazy clouds that sail the wide world o’er

Falter and turn where they can sail no more.

There singing groves, there spacious gardens blow —

Cedars and silver poplars, row on row,

Through whose black boughs on her appointed night,

Flooding his chamber with enchanted light,

Lifts the full moon’s immeasurable sphere,

Crimson and huge and wonderfully near.

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Poems in English 

• Шекспир – Уж если ты разлюбишь – Сонет 90 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – У сердца с глазом тайный договор – Сонет 47 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – У бедной музы красок больше нет – Сонет 103 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Ты положи с моей любовью рядом – Сонет 117 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Считать часы и спрашивать – Сонет 58 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – С любовью связан жизненный мой путь – Сонет 92 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Разлука сердце делит пополам – Сонет 39 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Проснись, любовь – Сонет 56 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Про черный день – Сонет 63 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Пример тебе подобной красоты – Сонет 84 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Прекрасный облик в зеркале ты видишь – Сонет 3 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – По совести скажи – Сонет 10 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Но не боюсь и смерть – Сонет 80 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Неужто я, приняв любви венец – Сонет 114 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Не позволяю помыслам ревнивым – Сонет 57 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Мой глаз гравером стал – Сонет 24 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Мои глаза в тебя не влюблены – Сонет 141 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Мне показалось, что была зима – Сонет 97 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Меня не радует твоя печаль – Сонет 34 by William Shakespeare
• Шекспир – Любовь – не кукла жалкая в руках – Сонет 116 by William Shakespeare

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