WINTERLONG

[For you] the fragrant-blossomed Muses' lovely gifts
[be zealous] girls, [and the ] clear melodious lyre.

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark.

My heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I bemoan, but what's to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn
love smitten, carried him off to the world's end

handsome and young then, get in time grey age
o'ertook him, husband of immortal wife.


Poem:  Sappho, Fragment 58, from Köln Ms., Martin West translation, 2005. 

Winterlong -- Neil Young (Link).

Image:  Clark Blickensderfer, Ptarmigan In Winter, From Pictorial Photography In America, 1922.