Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922. | | The Effects of Age | By Walter Savage Landor |
| YES, I write verses now and then, | |
But blunt and flaccid is my pen, | |
No longer talked of by young men | |
As rather clever. | |
In their last quarter are my eyes, | 5 |
You see it by their form and size, | |
Is it not time, then, to be wise? | |
Or now, or never. | |
|
Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! | |
While time allows the short reprieve | 10 |
Just look at me! Could you believe | |
T was once a lover? | |
I cannot clear the five-barred gate, | |
But trying first its timbers state, | |
Climb stiffly up, take breath and wait, | 15 |
To trundle over. | |
|
Through galopade I cannot swing | |
Th entangling blooms of beautys spring, | |
I cannot say the tender thing, | |
Be t true or false. | 20 |
And am beginning to opine | |
Those girls are only half-divine | |
Whose waists you wicked boys entwine | |
In giddy waltz. | |
|
I fear that arm above that shoulder, | 25 |
I wish them wiser, graver, older, | |
Sedater, and no harm if colder, | |
And panting less. | |
Ah! people were not half so wild | |
In former days, when, starchly mild, | 30 |
Upon her high-heeled Essex smiled | |
The brave Queen Bess. | | | |
|
|