Time has placed his careful insult
Upon your body.
In other ages Time gave rags
To hags without riches, but now he brings
Cotton, calico, and muslin —
Tokens of his admiration
For broken backs.
Neat nonsense, stamped with checks and stripes,
Fondles the deeply marked sneer
That Time has dropped upon you.
While Time, in one of his well-debated moods
That men call an Age, is attending to his manners,
I shall scan the invisible banners
Of meaning that unfurl when you move. . . .
You are not old: you were never young.
Life caressed your senses
With a heavy sterility,
And you thanked him with the bit
Of thought that he had left behind —
His usual moment of absent-minded kindness.
When the muscles of your arm
Punish the brush that rubs upon wood
I see a rollicking mockery —
Rhythm in starved pursuit
Of petrifying desires.
When you grunt and touch your hair
I perceive your exhaustion
Reaching for a ringlet of pity
And carefully rearranging it.
When you sag under tired breath and grey hair,
I can spy the meanness
That lofty men give to Old Age,
Beneath the shrines of easy, worshipping words.

Lift up your pails and go home;
Take the false tenderness of rest;
Drop your clothes, disordered, on the floor.
Vindictive simplicity.