I have old women's secrets now
That had those of the young;
Madge tells me what I dared not think
When my blood was strong,
And what had drowned a lover once
Sounds like an old song.
Though Margery is stricken dumb
If thrown in Madge's way,
We three make up a solitude;
For none alive today
Can know the stories that we know
Or say the things we say:
How such a man pleased women most
Of all that are gone,
And how the rich could praise the poor
And how the poor could con.
To mind the past, to dream on and on,
To glory in the love
Of the old, the wheel of the world going round
Where all things change, and nothing dies,
And yet the love that has no end
Is a torment in our veins.