THE OLD MAN'S PEAN. VAINLY, ye libellers! your page Assaults and vilifies old age, 'Tis still life's golden æra; Its pleasures, wisely understood, An unalloy'd unfailing good, Its evils a chimæra.- VOL. I. Time's victim, I am victor still, Holding the privilege at will To seize him by the forelock; On me would he return the grasp, He finds there's nothing left to clasp- Not e'en a single hoar lock. G We blame th' idolatrous divine Who gilds and decorates his shrine, The Deity neglected; Yet our self-adoration blind Is body-worship--to the mind No reverence directed. Greybeards there are, who thinking art Can conquer nature, play the part Of adolescent friskers; Swindlers and counterfeits of truth, They strive to cheat us by false youth, False teeth, hair, eyebrows, whiskers. While to the frame due care I give, No Masquerader will I live, To no disguises pander; But rather seek to save from blight Of cheerfulness and candour. A youthful cheer sustains us old, As arrows best their course uphold Wing'd by a lightsome feather.- Happy the young old man who thus Bears, like a human arbutus, Life's flowers and fruit together. To dark oblivion I bequeath The ruddy cheek, brown hair, white teeth, And eyes that brightly twinkle ; Crows' feet may plough with furrows deep My features, if I can but keep My mind without a wrinkle. Young, I was never free-my soul Still master'd by the stern control Of some tyrannic passion; While my poor body, servile tool! The livery wore of fop and fool, An abject slave of fashion. Thanks to thy welcome touch, old age! Which strongest chains can disengage, The bondsman 's manumitted: Released from labour, thraldom, strife, I pasture in the park of life, Unsaddled and unbitted. If drawn for the Militia-call'd On Juries, where the heart is gall'd "Begone," I cry-"avaunt! avast! Am of myself free master." An actor once in every strife That agitates the stage of life, A lover, fearer, hater, Now in senility's snug box I sit, aloof from all their shocks, A passive, pleased spectator. Free-traders, Chartists, Puseyites! Your warfare, with its wrongs and rights, In me no rage arouses; I read the news, and cry, if hurt At Whigs and Tories throwing dirt, "A plague on both your houses!" Tailors! avaunt your bills and spells!-When fashion plays on folly's bells, No haddock can be deafer; Comfort and neatness all my care, I stick to broadcloth, and forswear Both Macintosh and Zephyr. "Tis but our sensual pleasures' zest That time can dull;- -our purest, best Defy decay or capture. A landscape-book-a work of art My friends, my home--still fill my heart With undiminish'd rapture. |