The Home Book of Verse Volume I Part 79

The cup of joy was filled then With Fancy's sparkling wine; And all the things I willed then Seemed destined to be mine.

Friends had I then in plenty, And every friend was true; Friends always are at twenty, And on to twenty-two.

The men whose hair was sprinkled With little flecks of gray, Whose faded brows were wrinkled-- Sure they had had their day.

And though we bore no malice, We knew their hearts were cold, For they had drained their chalice, And now were spent and old.

At thirty, we admitted, A man may be alive, But slower, feebler witted; And done at thirty-five.

If Fate prolongs his earth-days, His joys grow fewer still; And after five more birthdays He totters down the hill.

We were the true immortals Who held the earth in fee; For us were flung the portals Of fame and victory.

The days were bright and breezy, And gay our banners flew, And every peak was easy To scale at twenty-two.

And thus we spent our gay time As having much to spend; Swift, swift, that pretty playtime Flew by and had its end.

And lo! without a warning I woke, as others do, One fine mid-winter morning, A man of forty-two.

And now I see how vainly Is youth with ardor fired; How fondly, how insanely I formerly aspired.

A boy may still detest age, But as for me I know, A man has reached his best age At forty-two or so.

For youth it is the season Of restlessness and strife; Of pa.s.sion and unreason, And ignorance of life.

Since, though his cheeks have roses, No boy can understand That everything he knows is A graft at second hand.

But we have toiled and wandered With weary feet and numb; Have doubted, sifted, pondered,-- How else should knowledge come?

Have seen too late for heeding, Our hopes go out in tears, Lost in the dim receding, Irrevocable years.

Yet, though with busy fingers No more we wreathe the flowers, An airy perfume lingers, A brightness still is ours.

And though no rose our cheeks have, The sky still shines as blue; And still the distant peaks have The glow of twenty-two.

Rudolph Chambers Lehmann [1856-1929]

TO CRITICS

When I was seventeen I heard From each censorious tongue, "I'd not do that if I were you; You see you're rather young."

Now that I number forty years, I'm quite as often told Of this or that I shouldn't do Because I'm quite too old.

O carping world! If there's an age Where youth and manhood keep An equal poise, alas! I must Have pa.s.sed it in my sleep.

Walter Learned [1847-1915]

THE RAINBOW

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

LEAVETAKING

Pa.s.s, thou wild light, Wild light on peaks that so Grieve to let go The day.

Lovely thy tarrying, lovely too is night: Pa.s.s thou away.

Pa.s.s, thou wild heart, Wild heart of youth that still Hast half a will To stay.

I grow too old a comrade, let us part: Pa.s.s thou away.

William Watson [1858-1935]

EQUINOCTIAL

The sun of life has crossed the line; The summer-shine of lengthened light Faded and failed, till, where I stand, 'Tis equal day and equal night.

One after one, as dwindling hours, Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, And soon may barely leave the gleam That coldly scores a winter's day.

I am not young; I am not old; The flush of morn, the sunset calm, Paling and deepening, each to each, Meet midway with a solemn charm.

One side I see the summer fields, Not yet disrobed of all their green; While westerly, along the hills, Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.

Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm Make battle-ground of this my life!

Where, even-matched, the night and day Wage round me their September strife!

I bow me to the threatening gale: I know when that is overpast, Among the peaceful harvest days, An Indian Summer comes at last!

Adeline D. T. Whitney [1824-1906]

"BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF YEARS"

From "Atalanta in Calydon"

Before the beginning of years, There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a gla.s.s that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance, fallen from heaven; And madness, risen from h.e.l.l; Strength, without hands to smite; Love, that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light; And life, the shadow of death.

And the high G.o.ds took in hand Fire, and the falling of tears, And a measure of sliding sand From under the feet of the years; And froth and drift of the sea, And dust of the laboring earth; And bodies of things to be In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter, And fashioned with loathing and love, With life before and after, And death beneath and above, For a day and a night and a morrow, That his strength might endure for a span, With travail and heavy sorrow, The holy Spirit of man.

From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife; They breathed upon his mouth, They filled his body with life; Eyesight and speech they wrought For the veils of the soul therein, A time for labor and thought, A time to serve and to sin; They gave him light in his ways, And love, and a s.p.a.ce for delight, And beauty and length of days, And night, and sleep in the night.

His speech is a burning fire; With his lips he travaileth; In his heart is a blind desire, In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision Sows, and he shall not reap; His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]