Greybeards at Play

A Dedication
TO E.C.B.

He was, through boyhood's storm and shower,
 * My best, my nearest friend;

We wore one hat, smoked one cigar,
 * One standing at each end.

We were two hearts with single hope,
 * Two faces in one hood;

I knew the secrets of his youth;
 * I watched his every mood.

The little things that none but I
 * Saw were beyond his wont,

The streaming hair, the tie behind,
 * The coat tails worn in front.

I marked the absent-minded scream,
 * The little nervous trick

Of rolling in the grate, with eyes
 * By friendship's light made quick.

But youth's black storms are gone and past,
 * Bare is each aged brow;

And, since with age we're growing bald,
 * Let us be babies now.

Learning we knew; but still to-day,
 * With spelling-book devotion,

Words of one syllable we seek
 * In moments of emotion.

Riches we knew; and well dressed dolls--
 * Dolls living--who expressed

No filial thoughts, however much
 * You thumped them in the chest.

Old happiness is grey as we,
 * And we may still outstrip her;

If we be slippered pantaloons,
 * Oh let us hunt the slipper!

The old world glows with colours clear;
 * And if, as saith the saint,

The world is but a painted show,
 * Oh let us lick the paint!

Far, far behind are morbid hours,
 * And lonely hearts that bleed.

Far, far behind us are the days,
 * When we were old indeed.

Leave we the child: he is immersed
 * With scientists and mystics:

With deep prophetic voice he cries
 * Canadian food statistics.

But now I know how few and small,
 * The things we crave need be--

Toys and the universe and you--
 * A little friend to tea.

Behold the simple sum of things,
 * Where, in one splendour spun,

The stars go round the Mulberry Bush,
 * The Burning Bush, the Sun.

Now we are old and wise and grey,
 * And shaky at the knees;

Now is the true time to delight
 * In picture books like these.

Hoary and bent I dance one hour:
 * What though I die at morn?

There is a shout among the stars,
 * "To-night a child is born."