A Song
A Song - meaning Summary
Love's Weakening, Not Desire
The speaker reflects on a painful discovery: physical youth and sexual desire remain, but the heart has grown old. He once believed exercise and prowess would keep him vital, yet finds emotional warmth and passion diminished. The poem repeats a stunned question about this unexpected decline, mixing regret with a resigned acceptance that feeling, not body, has aged. It concentrates on the gap between bodily vigor and emotional exhaustion in later life.
Read Complete AnalysesI thought no more was needed Youth to polong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That thc heart grows old? Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old? I have not lost desire But the heart that I had; I thOught 'twould burn my body Laid on the death-bed, For who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
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