I. <br /> <br />LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand <br />Upon the desert verge of death, and say: <br />'What shall avail the woes of yesterday <br />To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land <br />Whose currency is strange unto our hand? <br />In life's small market they have served to pay <br />Some late-found rapture, could we but delay <br />Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.' <br /> <br /> <br />But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, <br />Our gathered strength of individual pain, <br />When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, <br />Dies with us - hoarded all these years in vain, <br />Since those that might be heir to it the mould <br />Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. <br /> <br />II. <br /> <br />O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, <br />Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, <br />Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, <br />And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, <br />Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight <br />Upon our souls - and shall our hopes and fears <br />Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, <br />And sell us the one joy for which we wait. <br />Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, <br />With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, <br />But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, <br />And all our longings lie within thy keep - <br />Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? <br /> <br />'Not so,' Death answered, 'they shall purchase sleep.'<br /><br />Edith Wharton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/experience-27/
