  All the warmth has gone out of white hair, It only answers to the wind And lifts and stirs like creeping snow Close to the frozen scalp of earth. It has no gold of autumn grasses Or red of beech buds Or warm brown of tree bark Or depths of quiet In which eyes burn like star-flame in a dark night. Has death white hair And the cramped empty shoulders of old age? If he has, I shall be as a child, frightened and trying to hide from him. But if his touch is the touch of warm rain, If his breath is sweet like the gray-green fruit of the juniper, If his shoulder is deep and strong like the up-heaved root of hemlock And his hair velvet-dusk as a moth’s wing, Then I shall go to him gladly, And sleep well.... |
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