Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Young Again

Young Again.

An old man sits in a high-backed chair, Before an open door,While the sun of a summer afternoon Falls hot across the floor;And the drowsy tick of an ancient clock Has notched the hour of four.

A breeze blows in and a breeze blows out, From the scented, summer air;And it flutters now on his wrinkled brow, And now it lifts his hair;And the leaden lid of his eye droops down, And he sleeps in his high-backed chair.

The old man sleeps, and the old man dreams; His head droops on his breast,His hands relax their feeble hold, And fall to his lap in rest:The old man sleeps, and in sleep he dreams, And in dreams again is blest.

The years unroll their fearful scroll— He is a child again;A mother's tones are in his ear, And drift across his brain;He chases gaudy butterflies Far down the rolling plain;

He plucks the wild rose in the woods, And gathers eglantine;And holds the golden buttercups Beneath his sister's chin;And angles in the meadow brook With a bent and naked pin;

He loiters down the grassy land, And by the brimming pool;And a sigh escapes the parting lips, As he hears the bell for school;And he wishes it were one o'clock, And the morning never dull.

A mother's hands pressed on the head, Her kiss is on his brow—A summer breeze blows in at the door, With the toss of a leafy bough;And the boy is a white-haired man again, And his eyes are tear-filled now.