these humourous verses by Saxe, the American poet : : I'M GROWING OLD. My days pass pleasantly away; My nights are blest with sweetest sleep; "I feel no symptoms of decay ; I have no cause to mourn nor weep; My friends are neither false nor cold- My growing talk of olden times, I'm growing fonder of my staff; I see it in my changing taste; Ah me! my very laurels breathe But makes me debtor to the years ! The secret she would fain withhold, Thanks for the years !-whose rapid flight That tint the darkness of their wings; Many of the best poets have sung IN PRAISE OF AGE. This world is set for to deceive us even, WALTER KENNEDY, 15th Century. So writes Henry Peacham Though age be short, and man doth, as the sun, The way is wide, an honest course begun; With threefold wreath-love, honour, and renown. The fact has hardly been estimated as it deserves, that scholarship and brain-energy within judicious limits are highly favourable to long life. Isaac D'Israeli (who himself worked and studied, serene and cheerful, to the age of eighty-two) says:"Let it be a source of consolation, if not of triumph, in a long studious life of true genius, to know that the imagination, may not decline with the vigour of the frame that holds it; there has been no old age for many men of genius. . . . . The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments and usually its powers a happiness which accompanies no other." "Even yet I am learning," was a device which Michael Angelo applied to his own vast genius in his ninetieth year. "A man of letters in his sixtieth year once told me, 'It is but of late years that I have learned the right use of books, and the art of reading."" Our later birthdays may be said to commence at fifty, though some of the very best years of active human life are not unfrequently realised beyond that date. Ben Jonson justifies himself for being in— LOVE AT FIFTY. Let it not your wonder move, N Lord Chancellor Hatton, at the age of fifty and more, was an ardent lover of "Good Queen Bess," whom on various occasions he entertained at his manor house of Stoke Pogis. Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green, But this is the period when all that is perishable in the passion of love usually decays, often to the soul's immense advantage. I had a heart that doted once in passion's boundless pain, And though the tyrant I abjured, I could not break his chain; But now that Fancy's fire is quench'd, and ne'er can burn anew, I've bid adieu to love for life-adieu! adieu! adieu! I've known, if ever mortal knew, the spells of beauty's thrall; And if my song has told them not, my soul has felt them all; But Passion robs my peace no more, and Beauty's witching sway Is now to me a star that's fallen—a dream that's passed away. Hail! welcome tide of life, when no tumultuous billows roll, How wondrous to myself appears this halcyon calm of soul ! The wearied bird blown o'er the deep would sooner quit its shore Than I would cross the gulf again that time has brought me o'er. Why say they angels feed the flame? Oh! spirits of the skies! Can love like ours, that dotes on dust, in heavenly bosoms rise? Ah, no! the hearts that best have felt its power, the best can tell, That peace on earth itself begins when love has bid farewell. CAMPBELL. Many hearts that have been wild and wilful are now regretful and repentant. In looking back unto my follies past, While I the present with times past compare, And think how many hours I then did waste Painting on clouds, and building in the air, I sigh within myself, and say in sadness, This thing, which fools call love, is nought but How vain is youth, that, cross'd in his desire, Who of itself continues constant still, And doth us good ofttimes against our will. J. C., 1628. |