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Home  »  American Sonnets  »  Wendell Phillips Garrison (1840–1907)

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

Evening

Wendell Phillips Garrison (1840–1907)

AGE cannot wither her whom not gray hairs

Nor furrowed cheeks have made the thrall of Time;

For Spring lies hidden under Winter’s rime,

And violets know the victory is theirs.

Even so the corn of Egypt, unawares,

Proud Nilus shelters with engulfing slime;

So Etna’s hardening crust a more sublime

Volley of pent-up fires at last prepares.

O face yet fair, if paler, and serene

With sense of duty done without complaint!

O venerable crown!—a living green,

Strength to the weak, and courage to the faint—

Thy bleaching locks, thy wrinkles, have but been

Fresh beads upon the rosary of a saint.