Stephen Crane

Friend, Your White Beard Sweeps the Ground

Friend, Your White Beard Sweeps the Ground - meaning Summary

Urgent Counsel to Aging Hope

The poem addresses an elderly friend whose white beard and tired eyes symbolize aging and lingering expectation. The speaker questions why the man waits to witness the arrival of justice or triumph in his remaining days and urges him not to cling to that hope. Instead, he counsels the friend to abandon waiting and seek gentler, more immediate consolation and comfort in the time left to him.

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Friend, your white beard sweeps the ground. Why do you stand, expectant? Do you hope to see it In one of your withered days? With your old eyes Do you hope to see The triumphal march of justice? Do not wait, friend! Take your white beard And your old eyes To more tender lands.

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