Challenge

Can I grow old?
This throbbing pulsing ecstasy,
This I of I, this Me of Me,
Can I grow old?
The years have told
This thing: That form, that flesh, will change;
All that is fair grow different, strange;
You will grow old.

This, Time’s reply;
You will grow old and cease to be.
But I deny exultantly, not I, not I.
No fleshly bond
Can leash these strange, these unnamed fires;
These surging thoughts, these dear desires…
They soar beyond.

And this, this Me
Moves on towards some great sublime,
And laughs at Death and laughs at Time,
Eternally.