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

And order mourning.

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

That Pyrrha’s hair is neatly twined,

That Chloe ’s pretty.

Young Love ’s for us a farce that ’s played;

Light canzonet and serenade

No more may tempt us;

Gray hairs but ill accord with dreams;

From aught but sour didactic themes

Our years exempt us.

“À la bonne heure!” You fancy so?

You think for one white streak we grow

At once satiric?

A fiddlestick! Each hair ’s a string

To which our graybeard Muse shall sing

A younger lyric.

Our heart ’s still sound. Shall “cakes and ale”

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.