Caroling Dusk/Lines to Our Elders

by Countee Cullen

For other versions of this work, see Lines to Our Elders.

LINES TO OUR ELDERS

You too listless to examineIf in pestilence or famineDeath lurk least, a hungry gamin Gnawing on you like a beaverOn a root, while you trifleTime away nodding in the sun,Careless how the shadows crawlSurely up your crumbling wall,Heedless of the Thief’s footfall,Death’s, whose nimble fingers rifleYour heartbeats one by weary one,—Here’s the difference in our dying:You go dawdling, we go flying.Here’s a thought flung out to plague you:Ours the pleasure if we’d lieverBurn completely with the feverThan go ambling with the ague.