Explore "Being Old" by Langston Hughes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It's because you are so young --
You do not understand.
But we are old / As the jungle trees / That bloomed forever, / Old as the forgotten rivers / That flowed into the earth.
Surely we know what you do not know:
Joy of living, / Uselessness of things.
You are too young to understand yet.
Build another skyscraper / Touching the stars.
We sit with our backs against a tree / And watch skyscrapers tumble / And stars forget.
Solomon built a temple / And it must have fallen down.
It isn't here now.
We know some things, being old, / You do not understand.