| |
| WE talk’d with open heart, and tongue | |
| Affectionate and true, | |
| A pair of friends, though I was young, | |
| And Matthew seventy-two. | |
| |
| We lay beneath a spreading oak, | 5 |
| Beside a mossy seat; | |
| And from the turf a fountain broke | |
| And gurgled at our feet. | |
| |
| ‘Now, Matthew!’ said I, ‘let us match | |
| This water’s pleasant tune | 10 |
| With some old border-song, or catch | |
| That suits a summer’s noon. | |
| |
| ‘Or of the church-clock and the chimes | |
| Sing here beneath the shade | |
| That half-mad thing of witty rhymes | 15 |
| Which you last April made!’ | |
| |
| In silence Matthew lay, and eyed | |
| The spring beneath the tree; | |
| And thus the dear old man replied, | |
| The gray-hair’d man of glee: | 20 |
| |
| ‘No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears, | |
| How merrily it goes! | |
| ’Twill murmur on a thousand years | |
| And flow as now it flows. | |
| |
| ‘And here, on this delightful day, | 25 |
| I cannot choose but think | |
| How oft, a vigorous man, I lay | |
| Beside this fountain’s brink. | |
| |
| ‘My eyes are dim with childish tears, | |
| My heart is idly stirr’d, | 30 |
| For the same sound is in my ears | |
| Which in those days I heard. | |
| |
| ‘Thus fares it still in our decay: | |
| And yet the wiser mind | |
| Mourns less for what Age takes away, | 35 |
| Than what it leaves behind. | |
| |
| ‘The blackbird amid leafy trees, | |
| The lark above the hill, | |
| Let loose their carols when they please, | |
| Are quiet when they will. | 40 |
| |
| ‘With Nature never do they wage | |
| A foolish strife; they see | |
| A happy youth, and their old age | |
| Is beautiful and free: | |
| |
| ‘But we are press’d by heavy laws; | 45 |
| And often, glad no more, | |
| We wear a face of joy, because | |
| We have been glad of yore. | |
| |
| ‘If there be one who need bemoan | |
| His kindred laid in earth, | 50 |
| The household hearts that were his own,— | |
| It is the man of mirth. | |
| |
| ‘My days, my friend, are almost gone, | |
| My life has been approved, | |
| And many love me; but by none | 55 |
| Am I enough beloved.’ | |
| |
| ‘Now both himself and me he wrongs, | |
| The man who thus complains! | |
| I live and sing my idle songs | |
| Upon these happy plains: | 60 |
| |
| ‘And Matthew, for thy children dead | |
| I’ll be a son to thee!’ | |
| At this he grasp’d my hand and said, | |
| ‘Alas! that cannot be.’ | |
| |
| We rose up from the fountain-side; | 65 |
| And down the smooth descent | |
| Of the green sheep-track did we glide, | |
| And through the wood we went; | |
| |
| And ere we came to Leonard’s rock | |
| He sang those witty rhymes | 70 |
| About the crazy old church-clock, | |
| And the bewilder’d chimes. | |
| |
