Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904. | | | | Poems of Sentiment: II. Life | | Growing Gray | | Austin Dobson (1840–1921) |
| | | | “On a l’âge de son cœur.” |
| —A. d’HOUDETOT. |
A LITTLE more toward the light. | |
| Me miserum. Here ’s one that ’s white, | |
| And one that ’s turning; | |
| Adieu to song and “salad days.” | |
| My Muse, let ’s go at once to Jay’s | 5 |
| And order mourning. | |
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| We must reform our rhymes, my dear, | |
| Renounce the gay for the severe,— | |
| Be grave, not witty; | |
| We have no more the right to find | 10 |
| That Pyrrha’s hair is neatly twined, | |
| That Chloe ’s pretty. | |
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| Young Love ’s for us a farce that ’s played; | |
| Light canzonet and serenade | |
| No more may tempt us; | 15 |
| Gray hairs but ill accord with dreams; | |
| From aught but sour didactic themes | |
| Our years exempt us. | |
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| “À la bonne heure!” You fancy so? | |
| You think for one white streak we grow | 20 |
| At once satiric? | |
| A fiddlestick! Each hair ’s a string | |
| To which our graybeard Muse shall sing | |
| A younger lyric. | |
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| Our heart ’s still sound. Shall “cakes and ale” | 25 |
| Grow rare to youth because we rail | |
| At school-boy dishes? | |
| Perish the thought! ’T is ours to sing, | |
| Though neither Time nor Tide can bring | |
| Belief with wishes. | 30 | | | |
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