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 So would I seem amid the young and gay That in my age as chearful I might be 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, And if the mist retiring slow, 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 And slow with many a feeble pause, He labours up the steep. And if the mists of night close round, So cheerfully does youth begin ELEGY On a QUID of TOBACCO. It lay before me on the close-grazed grass, And shall I by the mute adviser pass Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid! Perhaps some idle drunkard threw thee there, Ah! luckless was the day he learnt to chew! Then to the alehouse went to quench his thirst. So great events from causes small arise, Let not temptation, mortal, ere come nigh! 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. |