It must have been in 'forty - I would say 'thirty-nine

We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.

He said, 'Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,

If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;

What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,

And when on the western summits the fading light appears,

the broadest sea.

'I know it,' I said, 'old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;

A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;

But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,

You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.

'At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise;

Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys;

No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes,

But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose.'

fifty years.

There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, But there never was one of fifty that loved to say 'I'm old;'

So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,

Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.

Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round;

Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned,

Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told;

Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict old?

40

No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim;

Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb,

Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends,

The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.

20

1859.

(1877.)

Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as

they fall,

In rushing river-tides !

Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,

1 This and the three following poems are from the Professor at the Breakfast Table. The Boys' also is included in that volume.

THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray;

Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds,

Following the mighty van that Freedom leads,

Her glorious standard flaming to the day! The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds

Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth

Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb.

Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North:

The myriad-handed Future stretches forth Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come,

we come!

Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these

Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams,

We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. It matters little if they pall or please, Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams

Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems

Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees.

Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!

She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow,

And turned on her brother the face of a foe!