To Grow Older Poem by Jan Struther

TO grow older is this:
To feel on the first rose
The breath malign and fell
Of the first icicle,
And in the earliest kiss
The handshake of farewell.

To turn at length heart-craven:
Deliberately to close
Your senses to the spring
Because her wiles must bring
December round again;
To shun love's foothills even,
Fearing to reach the crest
Of joy, and see beyond
No choice but to descend
Those slopes of less-than-best
Which are most kin to pain.

And in the end to find
Sole refuge in the mind-
That princely solitude
Where the meek seasons spin
Swift, slow, to suit your will,
Or whirl a-widdershin
From rose to daffodil;
Where love no sequence keeps,
But at your bidding leaps
-Bold, gentle, sweet, or hot-
From mood to mood,
Yet wanes not, withers not.