Everybody Loves Getting Old

If anybody needs a good kiss-off poem, here's one.

Jealousy

Rupert Brooke

When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
That you have given him every touch and move,
Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
-- Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,
For the great time when love is at a close,
And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose
And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
Day after day you'll sit with him and note
The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;
As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,
And love, love, love to habit!
And after that,
When all that's fine in man is at an end,
And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend
A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,
When his rare lips hang flabby and can't hold
Slobber, and you're enduring that worst thing,
Senility's queasy furtive love-making,
And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,
Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning
A scrap that life's flung by, and love's forgotten, --
Then you'll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;
And he'll be dirty, dirty!
O lithe and free
And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,
That's how I'll see your man and you! --


But you
-- Oh, when THAT time comes, you'll be dirty too! 




Man, that's intense stuff. Rupert Brooke is best known as a "war poet," he died in France in World War I and was famous for writing very patriotic, stirring verse. He's often contrasted with Siegfried Sassoon, another soldier-poet of WWI who died in action, but Sassoon shows ghastly, nightmarish visions of death in the mud from new technological mechanisms. There was a saying in Great Britain after the war that "We went to war with Rupert Brooke, and came back with Siegfried Sassoon."


But Brooke isn't known for his amorous poetry, so this one took me by surprise. Especially the description of an aging couple: it's like the coming apocalypse for "The Hills" or "Cougartown."