A poem for your fearless comments?

Question

An Old Man and Youth

Can you look into old eyes and see
That love once sparkled from them young and free?
Can you inspect a pale and wizened brow
And find the prints of lips that made it glow?
Can you discover in a thin and down-cupped mouth
The joys that gave all living and all being worth?

If you pretend to do these things and well
I’ll grant you more than ever tellers tell,
I’ll make your bank of riches overgrow:
The wealth of ages you will surely know
For bringing back my age-worn heart to me,
Which is the secret of longevity.

In answer to Divra's questions: I used "pretend" because I think age suspects youth of humoring its delusions, even while realizing that it wants them humored badly enough to accept their pretense as real. I'm old enough to see that this is a possible view of an old man, and young enough to remember those things in the odd lines of the first stanza.

Answer 1

Firstly congratulations on "A Lover's View"

About this poem I only don't like one word but is makes a great difference. Why do you use "pretend"? Isn't it any other true way for the young to do these things? (I think you compromised the meaning here so as to have 10 syllables)
I would prefer it
"If you would do these things and well"
or "If you would do these things and do it well"

I like mostly the first part. How old are you?

Answer 2

The first line should be: Can you look into an old man's eyes and see ( or)
Can you look into these old eyes and see,
Love once sparked from them young and free....(Something like that maybe).

The middle, i would have to really understand it better.....

The last few lines are genius: The wealth of ages you will surely know
For bringing back my age-worn heart to me
Which is the secret of longevity. Very......very......GOOD. It's worthy.

Answer 3

I like the second stanza well enough, but the first one isn't working for me. I don't have any specific problems with it, but it just doesn't sound as "poemish" as the second does. Maybe it's that the rhymes are off a bit as compared to the second half.

JMB
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Answer 4

To give and justly give;
without shame or fear.
Do what is right in your heart; and not be willing to reveal.
To who or such that it must flow;
but only just to let it go.

Answer 5

Beautiful. I think it contains certain philosophy. About TIME.
It is English literature and the English Language is the most beautiful of all languages.