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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AETATE 19, by HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE Poet's Biography First Line: Nineteen, of years a pleasant number Last Line: As you -- and yours? | |||
NINETEEN! of years a pleasant number; And it were well If on his post old Time would slumber For Isabel: If he would leave her, fair and girlish, Untouch'd of him Forgetting once his fashions churlish, Just for a whim! But no, not he; ashore, aboard ship, Sleep we, or wake, He lays aside his right of lordship For no man's sake; But all untiring girds his loins up For great and small; And, as a miser sums his coins up, Still counts us all. As jealous as a nine-days' lover, He will not spare, 'Spite of the wealth his presses cover, One silver hair; But writes his wrinkles far and near in Life's every page, With ink invisible, made clear in The fire of age. Child! while the treacherous flame yet shines not On thy smooth brow, Where even Envy's eye divines not That writing now, In this brief homily I read you There should be found Some wholesome moral, that might lead you To look around, And think how swift, as sunlight passes Into the shade, The pretty picture in your glass is Foredoom'd to fade. But, 'faith, the birthday genius quarrels With moral rhyme, And I was never good at morals At any time; While with ill-omens to alarm you 'T were vain to try, -- To show how little mine should harm you, Your mother's by! And what can Time hurt me, I pray, with, If he insures Such friends to laugh regrets away with As you -- and yours? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PEACE-AND HONOR by HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE READY, AY, READY by HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE THAISA'S DIRGE by HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE THE OLD SQUIRE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT VITAI LAMPADA by HENRY JOHN NEWBOLT BROOKLYN BRIDGE by CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS AMONG THE REDWOODS by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL |
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