Read "When we are Old" by Edna St. Vincent Millay online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream, / And out of all our burning there remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream, / This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime, / Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead, / Sleeping away the unreturning time. O sweet, O heavy-lidded, O my love, / When morning strikes her spear upon the land, / And we must rise and arm us and reprove
The insolent daylight with a steady hand, / Be not discountenanced if the knowing know
We rose from rapture but an hour ago.