Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/447

CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH While he thinks: "You are kind. May your tribe be increased;

But at this I can give you such odds if I will!"

What avail, fellow-minstrels, our crotchets and staves,

Though your tribute, like mine, rises straight from the heart,

Unless while the bough on his laurel-bush waves,

To his own sängerfest the one guest lends his art?

Whose swift wit like his, with which none dares to vie,

Whose carol so instant, so joyous and true?

Sound it cheerly, dear, for the sun is still high,

And we're glad, as he halts, to be out-sung by you.

CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH

, out, Old Age! aroint ye!

I fain would disappoint ye,

Nor wrinkled grow and learned

Before I am inurned.

Ruthless the Hours and hoary,

That scatter ills before ye!

Thy touch is pestilential,

Thy lays are penitential;

With stealthy steps thou stealest

And life's hot tide congealest;

Before thee vainly flying

We are already dying.

Why must the blood grow colder,

And men and maidens older?

Bring not thy maledictions,

Thy grewsome, grim afflictions,—

Thy bodings bring not hither

To make us blight and wither.

When this thy frost hath bound us,

All fairer things around us 417