Twilight

from Robert Lowell

Now, heart's ease and wormwood,
we rest from all discussion, drinking, smoking,
pills for high blood, three pairs of glasses—soaking
in the sweat of our hard-earned supremacy,
offering a child our leathery love. We're fifty,
and free! Young, tottering on the dizzying brink
of discretion once, you wanted nothing
but to be old, do nothing, type and think.

I wonder whether it's the freedom to do a Jarrell and check out early from the Darwin Hotel, a place that apart from good company is really better left behind.