Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/320

312 I stopp'd, and said with inly-muttered voice,

"It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold;

This neither is its courage nor its choice,

But its necessity in being old.

The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew;

It cannot help itself in its decay;

Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue."

And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.

To be a Prodigal's Favorite—then, worse truth,

A Miser's Pensioner—behold our lot!

O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth

Age might but take the things Youth needed not!