Page:Under the Microscope - Swinburne (1899).djvu/27

 fascination of verse should have so effectually closed our eyes and ears against all perception of these deplorable qualities in a poet whose name we have cherished from our childhood; and as we read there rises before us the august and austere vision of a man well stricken in years, but of life unspotted from the world, pure as a child in word and thought, stern as an apostle in his rebuke of youthful wantonness or maturer levity; we feel that in his presence no one would venture on a loose jest or equivocal allusion, no one dream of indulgence in foolish talking and jesting, which (as he would assuredly remind the offender), we know on the highest authority, is not convenient; and we call reverently to mind the words of a poet, in which the beauty of a virtuous old age is affectingly set forth.

"How sweet is chastity in hoary hairs! How venerable the speech of an old man Pure as a maiden's, and a cheek that wears In age the blush it wore when youth began! The lip still saintly with a sense of prayers Angelical, with power to bless or ban, Stern to rebuke tongues heedless of control,— A virgin elder with a vestal soul."

Or perchance there may rise to our own lips the equally impressive tribute of a French writer at the same venerable shrine.

"Vieillard, ton âme austère est une âme d'élite: Et quand la conscience humaine a fait faillite,