Gitanjali

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

--- William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Morning Rain

A slight rain comes,

bathed in dawn light.

I hear it among treetop leaves

before mistArrives.

Soon it sprinkles the soil and,

Windblown, follows clouds away.

Deepened Colors grace

thatch homes for a moment.

Flocks and herds of things

wild glisten Faintly.

Then the scent of musk opens across

Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon.

--- Tu Fu