A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old

I have old women's secrets now

That had those of the young;

Madge tells me what I dared not think

When my blood was strong,

And what had drowned a lover once

Sounds like an old song.



Though Margery is stricken dumb

If thrown in Madge's way,

We three make up a solitude;

For none alive to-day

Can know the stories that we know

Or say the things we say:



How such a man pleased women most

Of all that are gone,

How such a pair loved many years

And such a pair but one,

Stories of the bed of straw

Or the bed of down.