VI.

And as when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green,

The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see What then so chearful as the Holly Tree ?

VII.

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,

That in my age as chearful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree,

YOUTH AND AGE.

With chearful step the traveller

Pursues his early way,

When first the dimly-dawning east

Reveals the rising day.

He bounds along his craggy road,
He hastens up the height,
And all he sees and all he hears,
But only give delight.

And if the mist retiring slow,
Roll round its wavy white,
He thinks the morning vapours hide.
Some beauty from his sight.

But when behind the western clouds

Departs the fading day, How wearily the traveller Pursues his evening way!

B

Then sorely o'er the craggy road
His painful footsteps creep,

And slow with many a feeble pause,

He labours up the steep.

And if the mists of night close round,
They fill his soul with fear;
He dreads some unseen precipice,
Some hidden danger near.

So cheerfully does youth begin
Life's pleasant morning stage;
Alas! the evening traveller feels
The fears of wary age!

ELEGY

On a QUID of TOBACCO.

It lay before me on the close-grazed grass,
Beside my path, an old Tobacco Quid:

And shall I by the mute adviser pass

Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid!

Perhaps some idle drunkard threw thee there,
Some husband, spendthrift of his weekly hire,
One who for wife and children takes no care,
But sits and tipples by the alehouse fire.

Ah! luckless was the day he learnt to chew!
Embryo of ills the quid that pleas'd him first!
Thirsty from that unhappy quid he grew,

Then to the alehouse went to quench his thirst.

So great events from causes small arise,
The forest oak was once an acorn seed;
And many a wretch from drunkenness who dies,
Owes all his evils to the Indian weed.

Let not temptation, mortal, ere come nigh!
Suspect some ambush in the parsley hid!
From the first kiss of love ye maidens fly!

Ye youths avoid the first Tobacco Quid!

Perhaps I wrong thee, O thou veteran chaw,

And better thoughts my musings should engage; That thou wert rounded in some toothless jaw, The joy, perhaps, of solitary age.

One who has suffered fortune's hardest knocks, Poor, and with none to tend on his grey hairs, Yet has a friend in his tobacco-box,

And whilst he rolls his quid, forgets his cares.

Even so it is with human happiness,

Each seeks his own according to his whim; One toils for wealth, one fame alone can bless, One asks a quid, a quid is all to him.