William Faulkner’s “After Fifty Years” reflects on the passage of time, memory, and the persistence of the past. Written in his characteristic contemplative style, the poem explores how decades alter people and places while leaving emotional traces behind. Its meditation on mortality and remembrance echoes Faulkner’s broader literary concerns.
After Fifty Years
Her house is empty and her heart is old,
And filled with shades and echoes that deceive
No one save her, for still she tries to weave
With blind bent fingers, nets that cannot hold.
Once all men’s arms rose up to her, ‘tis told,
And hovered like white birds for her caress:
A crown she could have had to bind each tress
Of hair, and her sweet arms the Witches’ Gold.
Her mirrors know her witnesses, for there
She rose in dreams from other dreams that lent
Her softness as she stood, crowned with soft hair.
And with his bound heart and his young eyes bent
And blind, he feels her presence like shed scent,
Holding him body and life within its snare.
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William Faulkner (1897–1962) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet, celebrated for his complex narratives of the American South. A Nobel Prize winner in Literature, his major works include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!.
