Shakespearean Variations: Sonnet 2
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
perhaps a little snow shall grace your field
and furrows run more deep than they do now,
but youth as well as age will then be held;
for then where balance of all seasons lies,
where half-ish spent and hoped are all your days,
the fullness of your life before my eyes
will be laid bare and have my thanks and praise.
Our youth is but an instrument of use
in study of the ways of thine and mine;
our age is but occasion and excuse
to dream again the dreams of mine and thine.
-- And forty is still young, and not too old;
not soul, nor flesh, by then has yet grown cold.
