I Feel I'm Growing Old
I Feel I'm Growing Old
Original Text
David Mills, Poems Written at Spare Moments (Ottawa,
Ont.: Rolla L. Crain, 1901): 43-44. RCS.D3062.186
Cambridge University Library; B-10 8411 Fisher Rare Book Library
2 My heart is full of care,
3Time makes his furrow on my brow,
4 His snows are on my hair;
5The brook still murmurs in the glen,
6 That drives the creaking mill,
7And though I take the upward way,
8 I'm going down the hill.
9I feel I'm growing old, Mary,
10 But few now walk with me,
11Or sit and talk where many met,
12 Beneath the old beech tree.
13A score of them have journey'd on,
14 We linger still, you know,
15But sure I am, the time is near,
16 When we must rise and go.
17I feel I'm growing old, Mary --
18 Nay, do not wonder so --
19This tree my father planted here
20 Just sixty years ago.
21I see the young look cold on me --
22 O, well their thoughts I know --
23"He mars our sports by ling'ring here;
24 Why don't he up and go?"
25I feel I'm growing old, Mary --
26 The thoughts crowd on my brain,
27Of those who long ago here met,
28 Who ne'er will meet again.
29Oh, they have journey'd down the hill,
30 And disappeared from view,
31And though we once were many here,
32 To-day we are but few.
33I feel I'm growing old, Mary,
34 But few remember me,
35Nor know the many songs we heard
36 Beneath this spreading tree.
37Our sun is sinking in the west,
38 And few now care or know,
39That still we hear a dear sweet voice,
40 Come back from long ago.
Notes
1] Mary: Mills' wife Mary Jane since 1860. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1898
Publication Notes
D.M., Globe (13 Aug. 1898): 6.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme
Form