Page:Poems Cook.djvu/186

THE OLD MAN'S MARVEL.

Old man, old man, come tarry awhile,
 There is something I fain would ask of thee;
For thy hands are thin and thy lips fall in,
 And thou'st been a long time in the world, I see.

Thy back is bow'd, and thy forehead is plough'd;
 Thou'st a tapering chin, and a sunken cheek;
Oh! thou hast been long in the mortal throng,
 So tarry, and give me the wisdom I seek.

Of all thou hast mark'd and all thou hast met
 In wide Creation's curious host;
Come, tell me, I say, through thy pilgrim way,
 What is it hath call'd up thy wonder most?

"I'll tell you full soon," quoth the gray old man,
 "Though, methinks, you might be as wise as I;
It is not the moon," quoth the gray old man,
 "Nor the rolling sun, nor the azure sky:

"There is that which can change with swifter might
 Than the orb that maketh the ghost-hour fair;
There is that which gloweth with warmer light
 Than the crimson globe in the purple air.

"It is not the main with its rushing tides,
 Fitful in fury and curbless in will;
Nor the black ravine with its iron sides,
 Nor the pathless peak of the mountain hill.

"There is that which taketh its own wild course,
 In madder mood than the raging waves;
There is that which mocks the fissured rocks
 With harder walls and darker caves.

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