Young men soon give, and soon forget affronts; To elder years to be discreet and grave,
Old age is slow in both.
Then to old age maturity she gave.
Now wasting years my former strength confound,
And added woes have bow'd me to the ground:
Yet by the stubble you may guess the grain,
And mark the ruins of no common man.
BROOME.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow
O'er hearts divided, and o'er hopes destroy'd.
BYRON: Childe Harold.
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
CAMPBELL: Lochiel's Warning.
Nor can the snow that age does shed
Upon thy rev'rend head,
Quench or allay the noble fire within;
But all that youth can be thou art.
Now then the ills of age, its pains, its care,
The drooping spirit for its fate prepare;
And each affection failing, leaves the heart
Loosed from life's charm, and willing to depart.
Our nature here is not unlike our wine;
Some sorts, when old, continue brisk and fine:
So age's gravity may seem severe,
But nothing harsh or bitter ought t' appear.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Those trifles wherein children take delight
Grow nauseous to the young man's appetite,
And from those gaieties our youth requires
To exercise their minds, our age retires.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Age's chief arts, and arms, are to grow wise;
Virtue to know, and known, to exercise.
SIR J. DENHAM.
SIR J. DENHAM. Who this observes, may in his body find Decrepit age, but never in his mind.
Of Age's avarice I cannot see
What colour, ground, or reason there can be;
Is it not folly, when the way we ride
Is short, for a long journey to provide?
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Age is froward, uneasy, scrutinous,
Hard to be pleased, and parsimonious.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Authority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Old husbandmen I at Sabinum know,
Who for another year dig, plough, and sow;
For never any man was yet so old,
But hoped his life one winter more would hold.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Age by degrees invisibly doth creep,
Nor do we seem to die, but fall asleep.
SIR J. DENHAM. Old age, with silent pace, comes creeping on, Nauseates the praise which in her youth she won, And hates the muse by which she was undone. DRYDEN.
Thus daily changing, by degrees I'd waste,
Still quitting ground by unperceived decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away.
You season still with sports your serious hours, O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
This advantage youth from age hath won, As not to be outridden though outrun.
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Jove, grant me length of life, and years good
When the hoary head is hid in snow,
The life is in the leaf, and still between
The fits of falling snows appears the streaky The feeble old, indulgent of their ease.
Thus then my loved Euryalus appears;
He looks the prop of my declining years.
DRYDEN.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long;
Even wonder'd at, because he dropt no sooner.
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more:
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
DRYDEN: Edipus.
These I wielded while my bloom was warm, Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time o'ersnow'd my head.
A look so pale no quartane ever gave;
My dwindled legs seem crawling to a grave.
DRYDEN: Juvenal.
These are the effects of doting age,
Vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
GOLDSMITH: Traveller.
An age that melts in unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away.
DR. S. JOHNSON: Vanity of Human Wishes.
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage
flow,
And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.
DR. S. JOHNSON: Vanity of Human Wishes. Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
DR. S. JOHNSON: Vanity of Human Wishes. The still returning tale, and lingering jest, Perplex the fawning niece, and pamper'd guest, While growing hopes scarce awe the gath'ring
So mayst thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou drop
Into thy mother's lap; or be with ease
Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth shew
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
MILTON: Il Penseroso.
Such drowsy sedentary souls have they
Who would to patriarchal years live on,
Fix'd to hereditary clay,
And know no climate but their own.
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and loved, and ate, and drank your fill:
Walk sober off before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.
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