Poems (Dodd)/I would not grow old
I WOULD NOT GROW OLD.
With a hurrying step Time is passing away;He will touch my brown tresses and turn them to gray,And cross my high hopes with the coldness of truth;Oh, give me to drink of the fountain of youth.
I would not grow old, for with age comes a blight,Robbing earth of its beauty, the sky of its light;Leaving nothing in life, while the journey shall last,But to sigh o'er the present and weep for the past.
The time will be long when no joy marks the hours,And heavy the step where no longer are flowers;The ear will grow dull without music or mirth,And the eye lose its light that looks only to earth.
How toilsome the road, when all pleasure is goneWith a world-weary step to keep traveling on,While the star that once cheered us is shrouded in gloom,And hastening to set in the night of the tomb.
Then if hope only dwells with the young and the glad,O, who would not fear to be aged and sad?And who would not wish Time's flight to delay,If he carries our youth on his pinions away?
O, dreary and long is our journey below,With the path growing darker as onward we go;But I doubt if at last the affections are cold,And the heart, O, the warm heart can never grow old!
For the ear dulled to earth sweeter sounds may be given,And the eye that is dim may see pictures of heaven;While our hopes, bathed anew in the waters of love,Shall soar to the light and the glory above.
Then Time, do thy worst, to thy sceptre I bow,O'er the deathless affections no power hast thou,And I covet no draught from the fountain of youth,If my heart may remain still unchanged in its truth.