Why Else But To Forestall This Hour by Adrienne Rich
How about another by Adrienne Rich. This is most depressing, but very powerful.
Why Else But To Forestall This Hour
By Adrienne Rich
Why else but to forestall this hour, I stayed
Out of the noonday sun, kept from the rain,
Swam only in familiar depths, and played
No hand where caution signaled to refrain?
For fourteen friends I walked behind the bier;
A score of cousins wilted in my sight.
I heard the steeples clang for each new year,
Then drew my shutters close against the night.
Bankruptcy fell on others like a dew;
Spendthrifts of life, they all succumbed and fled.
I did not chide them with the things I knew:
Smiling, I passed the almshouse of the dead.
I am the man who has outmisered death,
In pains and cunning laid my seasons by.
Now I must toil to win each hour and breath;
I am too full of years to reason why.
