Vita, Vita! by Marie Van Vorst
The speaker laments the rapid passage of time and the waste of youth. Feeling that nothing has been achieved, gained, made, or accomplished, the speaker recognizes having been enslaved by pleasure, willingly yet ruinously. Before life has reached even its midpoint, exhaustion and disillusion have set in. The speaker is stunned by the cost of unrestricted living and by the prospect of paying a fearful, inescapable debt: the loss of youth.
By Marie Van Vorst · First published 1907 · Genre: Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 118 words
First lines
The flight of the years pursues me. / And nothing is done! / Nor gained, nor made, nor accomplished -- / Only Youth -- lost. / Slave to the pleasure that fetters, (nor would be free,) / Tired of the light before the disk of the sun / Is more than half of a circle! / Stunned at the cost / Of full free living, and nothing wherewith to pay / The long close score that blights with its fearful truth -- / _But my Youth_.
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Vita, Vita! is listed on Textopian as a poem by Marie Van Vorst, dated 1907 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Marie Van Vorst
- Date: 1907 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 118 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
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- Work identity for Vita, Vita! by Marie Van Vorst
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Similar titles
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Genres
- Poetry — The work is structured as a compact verse composition using line breaks, rhythmic phrasing, and concentrated figurative language.
- Lyric Poetry — It presents an intensely personal first-person expression of emotion, regret, and awareness of passing time rather than a developed narrative.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker reflects inwardly on aging, unfulfilled life, pleasure, and the cost of having lived freely.
- Philosophical Poetry — Its central concerns are abstract and existential: time, mortality, youth, accomplishment, freedom, and personal consequence.
Tags
fiction · romance · drama · society · love · marriage · relationships · family · women · identity · self-discovery · social expectations