Chapter XXII

If our hearts have burned in uplifting days with
a love as bright as it was lofty, age now makes
us slack and indulgent and mild before our faults.

You no longer make us greater, O youthful will,
with your unsubdued ardour, and our life is
coloured now with gentle calm and pale kindliness.

We are at the setting of your sun, love, and we
mask our weakness with the common-place words and
poor speeches of an empty, tardy wisdom.

Oh! how sad and shameful would the future be for
us if from our winter and our mistiness there
did not break out like a torch the memory of the
high-spirited souls we once were.