Herman Charles Merivale (1839-1906). Aetate XIX. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Aetate XIX

By Herman Charles Merivale (1839–1906)


NINETEEN! of years a pleasant number;
And it were well
If on his post old Time would slumber
For Isabel:

If he would leave her, fair and girlish,	5
Untouch’d of him,
Forgetting once his fashions churlish
Just for a whim!

But no, not he; ashore, aboard ship,
Sleep we, or wake,	10
He lays aside his right of lordship
For no man’s sake;

But all untiring girds his loins up
For great and small;
And as a miser sums his coins up,	15
Still counts us all.

As jealous as a nine-days’ lover,
He will not spare,
’Spite of the wealth his presses cover,
One silver hair;	20

But writes his wrinkles far and near in
Life’s every page,
With ink invisible, made clear in
The fire of age.

Child! while the treacherous flame yet shines not	25
On thy smooth brow,
Where even Envy’s eye divines not
That writing now,

In this brief homily I read you
There should be found	30
Some wholesome moral, that might lead you
To look around,

And think how swift, as sunlight passes
Into the shade,
The pretty picture in your glass is	35
Foredoomed to fade.

But, ’faith, the birthday genius quarrels
With moral rhyme,
And I was never good at morals
At any time;	40

While with ill omens to alarm you
’Twere vain to try;
To show how little mine should harm you,
Your mother ’s by!

And what can Time hurt me, I pray, with,	45
If he insures
Such friends to laugh regrets away with
As you—and yours?