Will You Love Me When I'm Old

Will You Love Me When I'm Old?

Will affection still infold me
When the day of life declines;
When old age with ruthless rigor
Plows my face in furrowed lines;
When the eye forgets its seeing,
And the hand forgets its skill,
And the very words prove rebel
To the mind's once kingly will;

When the deaf ear, strained to listen,
Scarcely hears the opening word
And the unfathomed depths of feeling
Are by no swift current stirred;
When fond memory, like a limner,
Many a line perspective casts,
Spreading out our bygone pleasures
On the canvas of the past;

When the leaping blood grows sluggish,
And the fire of youth has fled;
When the friends who now surround us
Half are numbered with the dead;
When the years appear to shorten,
Scarcely leaving us a trace;
When Old Time with bold approaches
Marks his dial on my face;

When our present hopes, all gathered,
Lie like dead flowers on our track;
When the whole of our existence
Is one fearful looking back;
When each wasted hour of talent,
Hardly measured now at all,
Sends its witness back to haunt us,
Like the writing on the wall;

When the ready tongue is palsied,
And the form is bowed with care;
When our only hope is heaven,
And our only help is prayer;
When our idols, broken round us,
Fall amid the ranks of men;
Until Death uplifts the curtain -
Will thy love endure till then?