To get the final lilt of songs,

To penetrate the inmost lore of poets--to know the mighty ones,

Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespere, Tennyson, Emerson;

To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt--

to truly understand,

To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price,

Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.