THE PADDOCK
Weak hands that tremble, O tottering knees that fail!
But one moon past, and I should not have been so spent.
Enough? Yea, Hiné, enough!
Shall a dry leaf consider the season?
Winds cannot wither it, rains cannot make it green.
While power ran yet in my veins, I was angry, I strove—
Behold, I will struggle no more.
For mine eye shrinks from the sun,
A shout is far from mine ears,
Hardly my staggering foot
Presses aside the grass
That is choking my wharé door
(Would I dance with these feet of lead?);
On the head once admired and perfumed
The [1]weeds of Tura lie thick
(Old heads tell truth—they turn pale, confessing that courage is lost);
My breast no longer is broad for the striving with sorrow—
And what of the heart within?
Ah,
Of old, long ago,
In a pa well-provided, the fortress call’d Hine,
Strong stood the house of my heart!
Heavy the storms it withstood!
Bare, in those days, was the store of my mind, scant the experiences
Gather’d and sorted, garner’d and laid up in store;
- ↑ Weeds of Tura: Grey hairs.
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