The wrinkled, sinking, liver-spotted skin,
As soft as pudding and as cool and pale,
Is terror to the firm of flesh, built in
To adolescent brains. The strong and hale
Tell one another life is short, so live;
What’s death to those who have not known the march
Of time, the aches and pains the decades give?
To see old faces, weathered, white as starch,
The rotted petals of once-blooming flowers,
A golden youth would close his cloudless eyes
To think of anything except the hours
And days and months and years and life that flies
Right past. His will to live from this source springs:
There is an ancient fear of ancient things.