| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| I. The Man Against the Sky |
| 14. Veteran Sirens |
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| THE GHOST of Ninon would be sorry now | |
| To laugh at them, were she to see them here, | |
| So brave and so alert for learning how | |
| To fence with reason for another year. | |
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| Age offers a far comelier diadem | 5 |
| Than theirs; but anguish has no eye for grace, | |
| When time’s malicious mercy cautions them | |
| To think a while of number and of space. | |
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| The burning hope, the worn expectancy, | |
| The martyred humor, and the maimed allure, | 10 |
| Cry out for time to end his levity, | |
| And age to soften its investiture; | |
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| But they, though others fade and are still fair, | |
| Defy their fairness and are unsubdued; | |
| Although they suffer, they may not forswear | 15 |
| The patient ardor of the unpursued. | |
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| Poor flesh, to fight the calendar so long; | |
| Poor vanity, so quaint and yet so brave; | |
| Poor folly, so deceived and yet so strong, | |
| So far from Ninon and so near the grave. | 20 |
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