Thou hast nor youth nor age
			But as it were an after dinner sleep
			Dreaming of both.
        				
Here I am, an old man in a dry month, 
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. 
I was neither at the hot gates 
Nor fought in the warm rain 
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, 
Bitten by flies, fought.
.
.
.
Signs are taken for wonders.  ‘We would see a sign!’
The word within a word, unable to speak a word, 
Swaddled with darkness.  In the juvescence of the year 
Came Christ the tiger 
.
.
.
These with a thousand small deliberations 
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, 
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, 
With pungent sauces, multiply variety 
In a wilderness of mirrors.  What will the spider do 
Suspend its operations, will the weevil 
Delay?

"Gerontion"
— T.S.Eliot