The Isle of the Long Ago And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us A nearer Good to cure an older Ill: 399 And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them YOUNG AND OLD From "The Water Babies WHEN all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down: God grant you find one face there Charles Kingsley [1819-1875] THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO O! A wonderful stream is the River Time, How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, And the summers, like buds between, And the year in the sheaf-so they come and they go, There's a magical isle up the River Time, And the Junes with the roses are straying. And the name of the isle is the Long Ago, And we bury our treasures there; There are brows of beauty, and bosoms of snow; There are fragments of song that nobody sings, There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings; And the garments that She used to wear; There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore By the mirage is lifted in air; And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar, O! remembered for aye be the blessed isle, When the evening comes with its beautiful smile, And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile, May that "Greenwood" of Soul be in sight! Benjamin Franklin Taylor [1819-1887] GROWING OLD WHAT is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Growing Old Is it for beauty to forego her wealth? Is it to feel our strength Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung? Yes, this, and more; but not Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline. 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Festers the dull remembrance of a change, It is!-last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blessed the living man. 401 Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] "SWEET IS CHILDHOOD" SWEET is childhood-childhood's over, Sweet is youth; but youth's a rover- Sweet is rest; but by all showing We must go. Alas! the going, Say "good-bye." Jean Ingelow [1820-1897] TWILIGHT WHEN I was young the twilight seemed too long. How often on the western window-seat I leaned my book against the misty pane And spelled the last enchanting lines again, The while my mother hummed an ancient song, Or sighed a little and said: "The hour is sweet!" When I, rebellious, clamored for the light. But now I love the soft approach of night, And now with folded hands I sit and dream While all too fleet the hours of twilight seem; And thus I know that I am growing old. O granaries of Age! O manifold A. Mary F. Robinson [1857– Forty Years On 403 YOUTH AND AGE YOUTH hath many charms, Hath many joys, and much delight; Well, since I love them both, The good of both I will combine,- And then-and then-I'll bless This twain that gives me happiness! George Arnold [1834-1865] FORTY YEARS ON FORTY years on, when afar and asunder When you look back, and forgetfully wonder What you were like in your work and your play; Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies, |