Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honored middle age,
nor victories of politics or war.
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent
passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the spirit and
frame like freshier, balmier air;
As the days take on a mellower light, and the
apple at last hangs really finished and in-
dolent ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of
all.
The brooding and blissful halcyon days.
~Walt Whitman~