I DO NOT FEAR TO GROW OLD. LAMENT Who will, in fruitless tears The speed with which our moments fly; I sigh not over vanished years, But watch the years that hasten by. Why grieve that time has brought so soon The sober age of manhood on ? As idly should I weep at noon To see the blush of morning gone. True, time will sear and blanch my brow; And should no foul dishonor lie Upon my head when I am grey, Love yet may search iny faded eye, And smooth the path of my decay. BRYANT. 108 SAYINGS OF OLD TIME. SAYINGS OF OLD TIME. I WEAR not the purple of earth-born kings, But monarch and courtier, though great they may be, Must fall from their glory and bend to me. My sceptre is gemless; yet who can say Ye may know who I am,-there's the passing chime, And the dial to herald me, Old King Time! Softly I creep, like a thief in the night, I eat through treasures with moth and rust; ELIZA COOK. FIFTY YEARS. 109 FIFTY YEARS. YES, mother, fifty years have fled, Years, ages, to oblivion roll, Their memory forms the deathless soul; 110 RECOLLECTION. A firm and self-approving mind! MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON. RECOLLECTION. WHEN mem'ry looks back on the record of years, Ere reason and feeling decay; Ere the footsteps we leave in this valley of tears Are swept by oblivion away ; 'Tis sweet, when delight has been sobered by age, To glance on its mirrors again, To glide o'er the clouds of adversity's page- RECOLLECTION. 111 As the tempest brings calm; as the hoar frost the spring; As the dawning disperses the day; So the sun and the shade of vicissitude fling A beautiful light on our way; And passions and rapture, when tempered by thought, No trace but of happiness leave; E'en grief, when remembered, is tranquilly taught, How vain-how ungrateful-to grieve. Life's briars and roses-its gladness and gloom,Do they vanish together ?-oh, no! The flow'rets we pluck, and condense their perfume, The weeds to the desert we throw. Like the bee, thoughts fly o'er the fields of the past, Finding sweets wheresoever they roam: They wander through sunshine and storm, and at last Store nought but their honey at home. BOWRING. |