| |
| VERSE, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying, | |
| Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— | |
| Both were mine! Life went a-maying | |
| With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, | |
| When I was young! | 5 |
| When I was young?—Ah, woful When! | |
| Ah! for the change ’twixt Now and Then! | |
| This breathing house not built with hands, | |
| This body that does me grievous wrong, | |
| O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands | 10 |
| How lightly then it flash’d along: | |
| Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, | |
| On winding lakes and rivers wide, | |
| That ask no aid of sail or oar, | |
| That fear no spite of wind or tide! | 15 |
| Nought cared this body for wind or weather | |
| When Youth and I lived in’t together. | |
| |
| Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; | |
| Friendship is a sheltering tree; | |
| O! the joys, that came down shower-like, | 20 |
| Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, | |
| Ere I was old! | |
| Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, | |
| Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here. | |
| O Youth! for years so many and sweet, | 25 |
| ’Tis known that Thou and I were one, | |
| I’ll think it but a fond conceit— | |
| It cannot be, that Thou art gone! | |
| Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d:— | |
| And thou wert aye a masker bold! | 30 |
| What strange disguise hast now put on | |
| To make believe that Thou art gone? | |
| I see these locks in silvery slips, | |
| This drooping gait, this alter’d size: | |
| But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, | 35 |
| And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! | |
| Life is but Thought: so think I will | |
| That Youth and I are housemates still. | |
| |
| Dew-drops are the gems of morning, | |
| But the tears of mournful eve! | 40 |
| Where no hope is, life’s a warning | |
| That only serves to make us grieve | |
| When we are old: | |
| —That only serves to make us grieve | |
| With oft and tedious taking-leave, | 45 |
| Like some poor nigh-related guest | |
| That may not rudely be dismist, | |
| Yet hath out-stay’d his welcome while, | |
| And tells the jest without the smile. | |
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