Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Элла Уилкокс)
At Forty-Eight
At twilight, vis-a-vis with fate, She sat, unhappy and alone, Her milestones numbered forty-eight, No other pathway crossed her own. No tender voice robbed age of gloom, No smiling faces cheered her sight. There only glided through the room The phantom of a dead delight. "How dim and drear the pathway seems," She said, "to me at forty-eight; Long since I wakened from my dreams-- I seek for naught, for nothing wait. "I am like one who blindly gropes Toward fading sunsets in the west; Behind me lie youth's shattered hopes: What can I ask for now but rest? "Some joys I sought with heart on fire Would find me now, but all too late-- I watched ambition's funeral pyre Burn down ere I was forty-eight. "With naught to hope, expect or win; This lonely lot remains to me, To count the wrecks of what 'Has been' And know that nothing more can be." Too sad to weep, to tired to pray; Alone she sat at forty-eight, While sunset colors paled to gray-- How desolate, how desolate!
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