We see the Patriarch's wintry face, Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile The musky daughter of the Nile, Might we but share one wild caress My bosom heaves, remembering yet The morning of that blissful day, When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, And gave my raptured soul away. Flung from her eyes of purest blue, O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid, O'er girlhood's yielding barricade Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold! Come to my arms! - love heeds not years; Sweet was her smile, but not for me; Alas! when woman looks too kind, Just turn your foolish head and see, Some youth is walking close behind! "THE BOYS." HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? If there has, take him out, without making a noise. Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! Old time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? He's tipsy, young jackanapes ! · show him the 66 door! Gray temples at twenty?" Yes! white if we please; Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! you will see not a sign of a flake! We want some new garlands for those we have shed, — And these are white roses in place of the red. We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, Of talking (in public) as if we were old : That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge”; It's a neat little fiction, of course it's all fudge. That fellow's the " 'Speaker," the one on the right; "Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the " Reverend" What's his name?. do n't make me laugh. That boy with the grave mathematical look There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire." And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, - You hear that boy laughing? You think he's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; Yes, we're boys,— always playing with tongue or with pen; And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men? Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! January 6, 1859. |