Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WISDOM OF ELD, by GEORGE MEREDITH


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THE WISDOM OF ELD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: We spend our lives in learning pilotage
Last Line: And ancients musical at close of day.
Subject(s): Old Age; Wisdom; Youth


We spend our lives in learning pilotage,
And grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank!
Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank
Sidled to gain the sunny bench of Age.
It is the sentence which completes that stage;
A testament of wisdom reading blank.
The seniors of the race, on their last plank,
Pass mumbling it as nature's final page.
These, bent by such experience, are the band
Who captain young enthusiasts to maintain
What things we view, and Earth's decree withstand,
Lest dreaded Change, long dammed by dull decay,
Should bring the world a vessel steered by brain,
And ancients musical at close of day.





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