Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Three Ages of Life

The Three Ages of Life.

Observe what wisdom shines in that decree,
Which, varying life, appoints our ages three,
Youth, manhood, and decline. In these we trace
A rich proportion, and harmonious grace.
Deprived of either life would charm no more:
A whirl of passion, or a desert shore.
If all were young, and this a world of boys,
Heavens! what a scene of trifles, tricks, and toys!
How would each minute of the live-long day,
In wild, obstreperous frolic, waste away!
A world of boys! defend us from a brood
So wanton, rash, improvident, and rude;
Truants from duty, and in arts unskilled,
Their minds and manners, like their fields, untilled;
Their furniture, of gaudy trinkets made;
Sweetmeats their staple article of trade;
No fruit allowed to ripen on the tree,
And not a bird's-nest from invasion free.
In public life, there still would meet your sight,
The same neglect of duty and of right.
Pray, for example, take a stripling court,
And see which there would triumph, law or sport:
"Adjourn, adjourn," some beardless judge would say,
"I'll hear the trial when I've done my play!"
Or, if the judge sat faithful to the laws,
Hear how the counsel might defend his cause.
"May't please your Honour—'tis your turn to stop,
I'll spin my speech, when I have spun my top."
Meanwhile the jury pluck each other's hair,
The bar toss notes and dockets into air,
The sheriff, ordered to keep silence, cries,
"Oh, yes! oh, yes! when I have caught these flies."

Such were the revellings of this giddy sphere,
Should youth alone enjoy dominion here.
All glory, mischief; and all business, play—
And life itself, a misspent holiday.
Now let us take a soberer view again,
And make this world a world of full-grown men,
Stiff, square, and formal, dull, morose, and sour,
Contented slaves, yet tyrants when in power;
The firmest friends, where interest forms the tie,
The bitterest foes, where rival interests vie;
Skilled to dissemble, and to smile by rule,
In passions raging, while in conduct cool;

Still, with, some deep, remote design in view,
Plodding, yet wanting ardour to pursue;
Still finding fault with every fretful breath,
Yet hating innovation worse than death;
In arts unwieldy, but too proud to learn,
In trifles serious, and in frolic stern;
In love, what glances—at a manor ground!
What sighs and wishes—for a thousand pound '
But sure the stream of life must sweeter stray,
The nearer to the source its waters play.
Besides, there's such a raciness in youth,
Such touches too of innocence and truth,
We love the things, how full soe'er they be
Of all their noisy pranks, and frivolous glee.
If they require our tight, experienced rein,
Our grosser vices they in turn restrain.
From youth the profligate their sins conceal,
And feign that virtue which they cannot feel.
Before his son, what father is profane?
What parent dares a filial ear to stain?

Who does not check his conduct and his tongue,
In reverence for the yet untainted young?
Oh yes! in tender age, a holy charm
Breathes forth, and half-protects itself from harm.
Bereft of youth, and to mid age confined,
The life of life were ravished from mankind.
The same dull round of habits would prevail,
Vice wax inveterate, folly would grow stale,
And this fair scene of active bliss become
A long, dark fit of hypochondriac gloom.

Thus youth's and manhood's fierce extremes contend,
With wholesome clash, each other's faults to mend;
Waging a kind of elemental strife,
They raise and purify the tone of life;
The light and shade, that fix its colours true,
The sour and sweet, that gave it all its goût.

But shall old age escape unnoticed here?
That sacred era, to reflection dear,
That peaceful shore, where passion dies away,
Like the last wave that ripples o'er the bay?
Hail, holy Age! preluding heavenly rest,
Why art thou deemed by erring fools unblest?
Some dread, some pity, some contemn thy state—
Yet all desire to reach thy lengthened date;

And of the few so hardly landed there,
How very few thy pressure learn to bear,
And fewer still thy reverend honours wear.
He who has stemmed the force of youthful fire,
And rode the storm of manhood's fierce desire,
He only can deserve, and rightly knows
Thy sheltering strength, thy rapturous repose.
As some old courser, of a generous breed,
Who never yielded to a rival's speed,
Far from the tumults of Olympic strife,
In peaceful pastures loiters out his life,
So the wise veteran ends his race, his toils,
And sweetly his late lingering eve beguiles.
What though the frost of years invest his head?
What though the furrow mark Time's heavy tread?
There still remains a sound and vigorous frame,
A decent competence, an honest fame;


In every neighbour he beholds a friend;
E'en heedless youth to him in reverence bend,
Whilst duteous sons retard his mild decay,
Or children's children smooth his sloping way,
And lead him to the grave with death-beguiling play.
Thus, as the dear loved race he leaves behind,
Still court his blessing, and that blessing find.
Their tenderness in turn he repays,
And yields to them the remnant of his days.
For them he frames the laughter-moving joke;
For them the tale with prestine glee is spoke;
For them a thousand nameless efforts rise;
To warn, to teach, to please, he hourly tries.
Nor ever feels himself so truly blest,
As when dispensing comforts to the rest;
His hands in active duties never tire,
He grafts the scion, points the tendrils spire,
Or prunes the summer bower, or trims the winter fire.
Nor is this all. As sensual joys subside,
Sublimer pleasures are to age allied;
Then, pensive memory fondly muses o'er
The bliss or woe impressed so long before;
The sinking sun thus sheds his mellowed ray,
Athwart those scenes it brightened through the day.
Then, too, the soul, as heavenly prospects ope,
Expands and kindles with new beams of hope.
So the same parting orb, low in the west,
Dilates and glows, before it sinks to rest.

Oh! if old age were cancelled from our lot,
Full soon would man deplore the unhallowed blot;
Life's busy day would want its tranquil even,
And man must lose his stepping-stone to heaven.

Thus, every age by God to man assigned,
Declares His power, how good, how wise, how kind!
And thus in manhood, youth, and age, we trace
A sweet proportion, and harmonious grace.