The Voice of Age
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he'd look upon us, if she could,As hard as Rhadamanthus would;Yet one may see,--who sees her face,Her crown of silver and of lace,Her mystical serene addressOf age alloyed with loveliness,--That she would not annihilateThe frailest of things animate. She has opinions of our ways,And if we're not all mad, she says,--If our ways are not wholly worseThan others, for not being hers,--There might somehow be found a fewLess insane things for us to do,And we might have a little heedOf what Belshazzar couldn't read. She feels, with all our furniture,Room yet for something more secureThan our self-kindled aureolesTo guide our poor forgotten souls;But when we have explained that graceDwells now in doing for the race,She nods--as if she were relieved;Almost as if she were deceived. She frowns at much of what she hears,And shakes her head, and has her fears;Though none may know, by any chance,What rose-leaf ashes of romanceAre faintly stirred by later daysThat would be well enough, she says,If only people were more wise,And grown-up children used their eyes.
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