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For the first twenty years you are still growing Bodily that is: as a poet, of course, You are not born yet. It's the next ten You cut your teeth on to emerge smirking For your brash courtship of the muse. You will take seriously those first affairs With young poems, but no attachments Formed then but come to shame you, When love has changed to a grave service Of a cold queen. From forty on You learn from the sharp cuts and jags Of poems that have come to pieces In your crude hands how to assemble With more skill the arbitrary parts Of ode or sonnet, while time fosters A new impulse to conceal your wounds From her and from a bold public, Given to pry. You are old nowAs years reckon, but in that slowerWorld of the poet you are just comingTo sad manhood, knowing the smileOn her proud face is not for you. R. S. Thomas
I love this.